16 inch wires

pooch

pooch

Well-known member
Not model A but many talk of 16 inch wheels here.

Anyway, just tonight at Sydney super swap, I bought 5 35 16 inch wires in good nick for 120 bucks.

I picked the best of a batch of 10 or so..

I am noticing that some are 5 1/8th wide and others are 5 1/4.

It seems the extra 1/8th is in the rollover of the inside edge, so does not affect any rim/tyre dimensions.

Were these wheels made by different manufacturers?

Like maybe kelsey-hayes and Ford. just guessing...

Any ideas?
 
Kelsey's have a bent-spoke design, and came in different widths. Chrysler's for instance were 5 1/2" wide and the outer rim had more "roll" to it. Ford wheels were straight-spoke and smaller diameter wire than Kelsey-Hayes.
 
Snyders is making 16" wheels on same tooling in Brazil that makes the 19" and 21" "A" wheels. Might be available by summer. Showed production sample at Hershey last fall.
 
Del in NE Ohio said:
Snyders is making 16" wheels on same tooling in Brazil that makes the 19" and 21" "A" wheels. Might be available by summer. Showed production sample at Hershey last fall.
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Will these have the 19" (or 21) centers or will they be similar to the '35's?
 
Those 32-35 style are a nightmare to mount. I have temporarily put 17" on my 29 coupe while I refinish my originals. The fronts are worse than the rears as you can't see the lug studs and the front Model A spindles are so large that they don't allow much space to get your hand in for the nuts, meanwhile you are wrestling with a 40 lb wheel that's flopping around. I'll make sure I stick with the stock 21" when I get them refinished.
 
Barry B./ Ma. said:
Those 32-35 style are a nightmare to mount. I have temporarily put 17" on my 29 coupe while I refinish my originals. The fronts are worse than the rears as you can't see the lug studs and the front Model A spindles are so large that they don't allow much space to get your hand in for the nuts, meanwhile you are wrestling with a 40 lb wheel that's flopping around. I'll make sure I stick with the stock 21" when I get them refinished.
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I know what you're saying about getting the lugs on the studs but it wasn't that bad. To me it was well worth any hassles.
 
Someone will correct me if I've got this wrong, but I believe you need to install adaptor rings on the hubs to fill the void that exists with 16 inch wheels on A drums. Without them you just deform the lug holes and render the wheels useless.
 
Ive used 16" wires on 46-48 hubs-the style with hub on outside of drum-By using 2 flat washers on each stud & it worked OK.You may have to grind or knock-off a balance weight to get the wheel to seat properly.I have not tried the wires on the earlier40-41 style hubs with hub on inside of drum.I had no problem with cracking around the stud holes.All 29-35 wheels work OK on those hubs.
 
Not all KH wire wheels were bent spoke. The wheels on my 29 are all Kelsey Hayes and they are not bent spoke, they are all stamped KH inside and two had late 1934 dates and two had 1935 dates. One of the 16's on my roadster is also a KH, the other three are ford but I never checked the rim width to see if there was a difference.
 
Roadster62 said:
Someone will correct me if I've got this wrong, but I believe you need to install adaptor rings on the hubs to fill the void that exists with 16 inch wheels on A drums. Without them you just deform the lug holes and render the wheels useless.
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There is no problem using 16 inch wire wheels, either after market Kelsey's or original Ford, with the stock Model A hubs/drums. The problem requiring spacers comes when you use the 1935 Ford or earlier wire wheels or Kelsey wire wheels on the later 1940-48 hubs/drums or when you use the later 1940-48 solid rims on the 1935 or earlier ford hubs/drums. Look at a stock model A hub/drum and you will see a ridge that must be compensated for by a spacer. The 1932-35 drums lacked the ridge but had 5 raised cast projections that must be compensated for by the spacer.

Charlie Stephens
 
I dont think the 16" wires will fit properly on the AR hubs as the OD of the wheel hub is deeper than the AR wheel & will contact the drum while leaving a gap behind the stud area of the wheel.Also,the studs would be a little too short.The wheels would soon crack around the wheel nuts.You would have the same problem with 29-31 wheels on AR hubs.
 
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