i have just bought a 1964 f-350, 1 ton, dual wheels. this is my first time dealing with an old truck. the wheels are the "budd" style 6 x 71/4" bolt circle. i have found out that it is almost impossible to replace them with modern wheels for a reasonable cost ! any ideas on where / how to get newer wheels ? or get similar (budd type) good wheels, mine are badly rusted .

the truck is in pretty good shape overall,, i would hate to have to throw in the towel over this.

any help/ideas would be most welcome !

 

First, welcome to FTE. Glad to have you. I see you're in MO. It's a long way away, but there's a '57 sitting in a yard in the Salt Lake City area that has a full set of 17.5" tubeless that will fit your truck. When I was there I asked the yard owner if he'd sell the wheels separate from the truck and he said he would. One of our members there, Josh Madsen, is already working with the yard owner on a different set of rims for his truck. Maybe he'd be willing to be the go between. The yard owner has a good idea of the value so you wouldn't be bragging about the score, but at least they are tubeless. And shipping would be expensive. The yard is Fico Truck Parts, and the phone is (801) 782-7502. Talk to Corey.

Otherwise, you're left to find used wheels in yards close top home, or have your wheel centers remounted in tubeless outer rims. There's been tons written about this over on the 48-60 page. If you want links to some of those postings let me know. One of the companies that does this remounting is American Wheel Specialist of Pasco, WA. I've visited them and have a set of 19.5s for my trucks that they did. Nice folks. Stu

 

thanks for the reply,,,it will give me a place to start ,,you mentioned putting the old centers in newer wheels,,is that something an average welding shop could do? i will check the other pages and see what i can learn

also i travel through central il. not all that far from the st. louis area i would think ! so if you know of any places of interest, truck wise, i am always open to suggestions.

thanks again ,tom

 

There's a few that have said they were gonna try it, but I don't recommend it. I've been sharing wheel technical info with a member that is a mechanical engineer. He's gonna try to do it. My comment to him was that he should take his lawyer with him where ever he goes just in case one fails.

One other thing, without looking it up, you'll want to be sure your wheels are "stud piloted" rather than "hub piloted" if you look into the '57. I know that some Fords switched to hub piloted in the '60s but would have to look up when it happened.

The only place I know of that has old trucks local is the place on I-55 near Staunton. But they only sell the whole truck. Old yards are disappearing. Let me give you some links to some of the better threads on the subject. Stu

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...-ton-rims.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...ck-wheels.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...ck-wheels.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...pecialist.html

 

Check out this ad on Craigslist...

http://spokane.craigslist.org/pts/1368213593.html

The wheels in the above-referenced ad look like they are the 6 on 7.25 coin-face dually wheels that fit the 61 through 66 Ford F350s (and earlier). I could be wrong on the application though, per what is said about them in the ad.

I have a 1962 Ford F350 that had retainer-ring wheels on it ("split rims") when I bought it. Because of negatives said to me by tire shop staffers about getting retainer-ring wheels serviced (anymore, a lot of tire shops won't touch anything but one-piece wheels), I ended up searching for some tubeless wheels. And I eventually found some 17.5 wheels through here (thanks, Grigg!), and I found some others on craigslist. The 17.5 inch solid wheels take 8R17.5LT tires, by the way. I'm not sure though if the tires in the above ad are 17.5 inch wheels, or 16 inch wheels (the 16 inch "retainer ring" wheels take LT 7.50-16LT tires), or whether they are larger than that (the ad says those wheels are for a "cab over" truck).

Good luck!!!

desertbus sends...

 

I'd wager a cup a coffee those are 6 x 8.75" circle, and not coined from the look of them. And they are definitely not one piece since they are 8.25x20" tires rather than 22.5". Just basic big truck "stud piloted" two part rims. They don't look like widowmakers from the pics, but that's hard to be sure of too.

I'm surprised you couldn't find anybody to work on your lock ring rims since companies like Accuride still sell them new. I could understand if your local Sears or some chain outfit wouldn't want to mess with them, but a big rig shop shouldn't think twice about it.

You're right that Grigg is a good man. He's not been here for a while as best I can tell, but he's that main wheel resource over on the Stovebolt site. Stu

 

Do you take your coffee black, or with cream or sugar, truckdog?

After I had already found a complete set of good 17.5 inch dually wheels for my own old truck, I ended up finding four more 17.5 inch solid wheels that had virtually brand-new Yokohama mudder tires on them through the Chico, California craigslist, and so I bought them as spares. It cost me twice as much to ship those four wheels with new tires to me here in Phoenix from Chico than I ended up paying for the tires and wheels themselves. I found that set of four wheels by going to Google's web-search page, clicking on "advance search", choosing craigslist.org as the SPECIFIC domain I wanted to search, choosing ads posted in the past week or in the past 24 hours as the ones I wanted to look at, and then clicking "search" after putting in my search words (I found my latest set of four wheels with those new tires by inputting the singular search word of 8R17.5LT, but search words like 8R tire, 8R tires, 8R17.5, 8R 17.5, 1961 F350, 1962 F350, 1963 F350, etc. under the craigslist.org domain (which searches all of craigslist's sites across the country) often times will work for finding these rare wheels...I've actually found several, perhaps even dozens, of available 17.5 inch wheels over the past couple of years on craigslist with those searchwords (looking for them has become a bit of a hobby for me), albeit I didn't buy most of those I eventually found...non-running old F350s being parted-out by their farmer-owners often can be found on craigslist, and many of these F350s being parted out via craigslist.org have the 17.5 wheels, which is how I got my own set of wheels through the Chico craigslist, from a farmer).

 

I hear you on shipping. That's the killer on any of them. And I'm with you on your search for them. I do the same, only not as well organized as you are. Mine are the 5 lug x 8" which are equally hard to find anymore. Stu

 

B8Y1015A .. Wheel ~ non Split Rim / Use with SRW / 17.5" x 5.25" / 6 lug 7.25" bolt circle / Use with Tubeless Tires.

Fits: 1957/66 F350 // 1953/71 P Series Parcel Delivery.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Or.....

B6TZ1015A .. Wheel ~ non Split Rim / Use with DRW / 17.5" x 5.25" / 6 lug, 7.25" bolt circle / Use with Tubeless Tires.

Fits: 1953/66 F350 // 1953/71 P Series Parcel Delivery.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
All 1953/66 F350's have 6 lug wheels on a 7.25" bolt circle.

 

thank you everybody for all the information,,now the searching begins!

 

Here's ads I found on craigslist just this morning that possibly look promising for getting wheels from.

Two of the ads mention parts-trucks, so wheels might be available too(?).

I found them by going to Google and then choosing Google's advanced search option. Once I got into Google's advanced search option, I then chose craigslist.org as the domain I wanted to search, I chose the dates I wanted to search for postings from as "past week", and I then input my searchwords (today the searchwords that found these ads were 1961 F350, and 1962 F350 ... sometimes ads for f350 parts trucks don't have the term "f350" anywhere in the ads, but other search words will work in those type of ads (searchwords that sometimes work for these parts truck that don't have F350 in them are 1961 (or 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, or 1966) ford ton truck.

The set of four wheels I found mentioned in my previous post of above were found by me with the singular searchword of 8R17.5LT, which is the size of tires that fit on the Ford 17.5 6 lug dually wheels. The farmer who had placed the ad was trying to sell tires that just happened to be already mounted on Ford 17.5" dually wheels.

http://louisville.craigslist.org/cto/1372772126.html

http://stlouis.craigslist.org/cto/1374079055.html

http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/cto/1369538449.html

 

Here's a truck for sale FOR CHEAP that looks like it has a complete rear set of six-lug dually wheels (the fronts look like non-duallys)...

1965 ford wood/farm truck

 

HEy Stu, thread back from the dead! all this talk of wheels this week made me wonder what ever happend to Fire and Smoke, and if he found what he needed.

I also wonder if these wheels up at Fico are still there?? that wheel in the picture almost looks bent to me.?

 

Yeah, it probably has a road ding that might be able to be fixed. Since this thread I've found a lot of these wheels on Craigs List too. They are out there. Stu

 

i'm back !!!
sidetracked to another project, a m715 jeep/army truck!
still looking for the old wheels ! found a couple in a junkyard that are salvageable,,now have to find a few more more .
any new leads out there ?