Hi,
Bill aka "NumberDummy" suggested I post in this forum, and specifically thought truckdog62563 might be able to help

Need some advice from the Ford experts. I have a 1950 3/4 ton GMC PU that was restored some years ago by another party. I have been trying to find a rim for the spare tire and nothing I see in the GM/Chevy arena matches what is on the truck.

However, someone over at a GM board said it looks like I may have Ford rims. I'm looking to confirm it so I can locate an extra rim that will match the rest, I want to side mount the spare so matching is important to me.
My rims look like this


I was given the following pic of rims on a 65 <nobr style="color: darkgreen; font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%;" id="itxt_nobr_1_0">Lincoln</nobr> on another board and except for the number of lug holes etc. it is almost a perfect match. Note the curved raised area between the studs and the lack of spaces between the outer and inner rim.



The person who sent me the picture speculated that I might have Ford rims on the truck.Can anybody over on the Ford board shed some light on this?

Better yet if you have a 16" 8 hole rim identical to mine for sale I would be very interested

Thanks for the help

Carl

 

Might be Ford, might be Dodge, might be both, could be anything. All the manufacturers got their wheels from the same group of sources. What I'm gonna do is go through several binders of old wheel catalogs to see if I can find a picture that matches your wheel. While I'm doing that I'll ask you to look closely at your wheels to see if you can find any numbers, manufacturing logos, dates, etc. Budd, Firestone/Accuride, and Motor Wheel generally stamped numbers into their wheels to identify them. Kelsey Hayes only put the numbers on a paper tag inside under the tire, but would also have their logo and generally a date code near the valve stem. You might also find what's called a National Wheel and Rim Association (NWRA) number. It will start with an "X" and probably will be followed by a five digit number. Whatever you find will help me look them up. Also please measure the wheel width. If I'm seeing right it's a 16", and probably 6" wide, but please measure it. Stu

 

Thank you Stu,
I will check them out tomorrow and get back to you
Carl

 

Another thing that might help tell what they originally came on is to know the exact measurement of the wheel center bore. GMs were smaller than Ford and Dodge.

What's stumping me so far are the three hub cap nubs and lack of air vents where the center meets the rim. I find plenty of half tons with the three nubs, but none so far with 8 lug x 6.5" circle. The raised area between lug holes I've found on a variety of Firestone/Accuride and Kelsey Hayes wheels, but always with four hub cap nubs and four air vents. I'll keep looking. Stu

 

Hi Stu,
If it makes a difference it is a 3/4 ton
Carl

 

The 8 lug x 6.5" pattern told me that. Stu

 

Stu,
I just went out with a flashlight and found stamped on one nub- for lack of a better term- the raised area between the nuts is
F-16562.
Carl

 

Stu-
Looked through the photos that came with the truck. It was a complete frame off job.

Pre restoration it had different wheels on it. Although the shots are not detailed I can see that the rims had the 4 small slotted vent holes. The current wheels show up on the truck after the frame work is done.
Presuming they were new at that time- and the look to be in good shape, that would place the purchase somewhere around the early 90s. Did not know if that bit of information would help or not.

Pardon my ignorance but is the wheel width the width measurement from the top od the wheel to the other side? The tires are 16 X 5.5,

Carl

 

Boy, that sure looks like a good Firestone/Accuride number, but I don't find it anywhere. And even in my lists of obsoleted numbers nothing with that low a numbering sequence is shown. Firestone/Accuride numbers, as you'll see in the below link, are now, and have been for a lot of years, numbered in the 20000 series. A good thing about Accuride, they don't change their part numbers like other manufacturers. Some wheels sold 30 years ago are still sold today and have the same part numbers. In the below Accuride catalog go down to page 31 of the pdf file and look at wheel #29576. It's similar to your wheel, but it has the four nubs and air vents like virtually all others I've seen in old catalogs. Sorry I'm no more help. If you find other numbers let me know. Stu

http://www.accuridewheels.com/lighttruckwheels.pdf

Looks like we were typing on top of each other. You measure rim width across the middle, down inside, between the rim lips. You can generally get an idea by running a tape through an air vent and subtracting the metal thickness of the lips. But in your case that won't work. You might run a ruler through the center bore and use two square edges to line up with the lips. That'd probably work. Stu

 

What's the diameter of the tire? 16in or 16.5? That can help determine the vintage of that rim. I see its tubeless, but 16 is used today where as 16.5 was used in the 70's.
Also the hole for the studs need to be watched. I bought a 77 fF250 couple years ago.
2 of the rims were newer 16in rims. The holes were bigger than the studs. The guy used the original lugnuts, and they were almost thru the holes in the rims. I bought new lugnuts that fit the studs, but had a bigger outside holding diameter. they fit the rims correctly, so then no worrys about a rim coming off.

 

The tire itself has "16 x 5.5" on it so I am presuming it is a 16 inch diameter.
But then I have learned a lot about "assuming"

Carl

 

The picture shows the tire is a 7.50R16 radial if I'm seeing it right. Is your 5.5" measurement of the treaded area? If so that's not how you measure.

You can tell by looking at the rim lip that it's not a 16.5. The half size tubeless rims will have what's called a 15° rim profile while this rim has a standard car/light truck 5° drop center profile. Here's a cross section diagram of them side by side. The diagram is for 20"/22.5" comparison, but the same concept applies to 14"/16.5" comparison. The rim on the left is a 5° profile and the one on the right is a 15°. Stu

 

Took a good look at the wheel this evening and found several other items.
First there is what looks to be a logo of some sort



Then maybe a serial number? These were different on the two I looked at


The other was 4 03 17 so maybe a date code of year, month day?

I will get the other dimensions but I thought these might be of interest.

Thanks Stu and the rest of the board for the help so far
Carl

 

I've been through everything I can think of to find that logo, but have come up dry. Not Budd, K-H, Motor Wheel, Accuride, or Hayes-Lemmerz which is the company that absorbed all but Accuride. I wonder if it's a union made logo or something similar. Those numbers are probably date codes, batch numbers, or some such. Stu

 

Interesting, two people have identified it as Rockwell International "who supplied various parts to GMC". But rims? Who would have thought it.?