Whitewall Shaving?

jchochole

jchochole

Senior Member
Anyone ever have their whitewalls shaved to expose more whitewall? My '57 needs larger than a 1" whitewall and it hurts to pay $800+ for tires. An older alternative was to have the whitewalls shaved at tire shops.

I am near Chicago in northern IL. Does anyone have any luck with this idea?

Thanks,
Jim Chocole
 
Yes, I did see all of those "do-it-yourself" clips and they are curious. Has anyone gotten it done professionally around Chicago? I am trying to find a place that will do it for me with a machine.

Thanks,
Jim
 
It can be done, and I do have a portable machine for doing it and used to do a lot of it, plus put whitewalls on blackwalls for car dealers. Also redline tires.

Most whitewalls have an inlay in the tire, but some have it vulcanized on after. You can widen the first, but not the second. If it is a bias tire you will probably be OK, but if it is a radial tire, you want to check it close. Some of the cheaper radials have these crazy dips in the sidewall running from rim towards tread. If that is the case, don't even try it. Some tires have the inlay start at the bead and go out some start about 1/2" from the rim and go out. You must know where this inlay starts and ends before you start because you MUST leave about 3/8ths inch of white under the black or your whitewall will start to come apart and look like a poorly installed port-o-wall. White inlays can also be a continuous circle and some can have an overlap joint, and some of them are of varied thickness. I have even cut whites out of some raised white letter tires, some you can't. No matter what you use, you can end up with a nice looking whitewall and you can end up with a junk tire just as easy, or maybe easier. Make sure the guy knows what he is doing.

Don't even ask me how I know this............
 
Sounds like it would be safer to just buy a whitwalled tire to begin with? I may not be that adventurous and there are quite a few pitfalls to performing the job myself.

Thanks for your wisdom! It is very appreciated.
Jim
 
It's not so much a safety factor, because done right, on the right tires, it is not unsafe. I recently needed new tires for my 56 Merc and by the time I found a tire that I thought I could get a decent whitewall out of, and I'm not a perfectionist, and figured a couple hours of my time, I could purchase wide white radials for the same price. Now, I can be cheap at times, so that was a no brainer for me. I bought wide whites.

Now, a friend of mine used to figure out how wide he wanted, take his dremmel tool and carefully grind off any raised lettering (tire size, load range, etc) skuff the area, then mask the tire and paint them on with Krylon flat white. He said that it was the only paint that would dry on a tire. He did get some pretty da--ed nice looking whites that way, even on used tires. I don't think he ever bought a new tire in his life.
 
my 54 ford i have real whitewalls but on my daily driver 66 c-10 i didnt want to pay for whitewall prices so i had a tire shop in my town shave some for around $30 a tire thats shaved mounted and balanced with new valve stems, the tire guy does alot of the classic car guys tires here and told me to get the biggest white wall by shaving,is to use tires with the white lettering instead of tires with the pinner whitewalls.....heres the ones i got done:
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jchochole said:
Anyone ever have their whitewalls shaved to expose more whitewall? My '57 needs larger than a 1" whitewall and it hurts to pay $800+ for tires. An older alternative was to have the whitewalls shaved at tire shops.

I am near Chicago in northern IL. Does anyone have any luck with this idea?

Thanks,
Jim Chocole
Click to expand...
hey im outta JOLIET IL 1mile from i55 on rt30 .. i cut custom colored whitewalls any size any color give me a call il send u some pics oR youtube.com TheTireSurgeon TO SEE VIDEOS OF CAR AND TRUCKS I DO ...i cut up to 32" wheels and no i dont mean SEMI WHEEL i mean CUSTOM WHEELS ON CARS ..815 557 7379 THE TIRE SURGEON
 
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