Advice asked for widthening rims on a 70 Duster

-
jefcharger

jefcharger

Can't fixit? Forget it...
Joined
Nov 2, 2010
Messages
49
Reaction score
0
Location
Netherlands
Hi all, I need some help. I have a 70 Duster, stock height. 8 3/4 rear axle. Small bolt pattern (5x4"). Current rims and tyres are all 4:
14" x 5.5 J rims with 205/75/14 tyres.
In front I am pretty confident, tyres might be 70 high instead of 75. In the back I want to go wider. Now I found someone who can proffesionally weld a ring in the rim on the outside of the rim. The side you can see. That way the backspace will remain stock. Now is my question to you: how wide can I go with the rim, get a wide tyre on it that still is a common size tyre and easy available but fits the wheel well closest to the fender possible? I calculated a bit and am thinking this: widen the rim to 7" and fit 225 tyres, but what will it look like and what height should I go for? I am thinking 70. Would love to see pics of someone who has a similar set up with good pics to be able to see how close the tyre is to the fender. Advice is appreciated too. Thnx!!!
 
This is a 8" rim, with a 245/60-15" tire, on a 70 Duster (LBP - 8-3/4 rear). --
Duster - 3.JPG
Duster - Gone - 7-16-18-2.JPG
 
If you want to find a decent selection of tire sizes, ditch the 14" tires. Pretty much obsolete these days.
 
replicaracer43 said:
If you want to find a decent selection of tire sizes, ditch the 14" tires. Pretty much obsolete these days.
Click to expand...
Thnx, I found out that much indeed, I have a brandnew set of cragar ss 17/45/235/8" which I temporarely mounted on the car with adapters to convert to the 5 x 4,5 pattern ( they will go on my 69 charger when finished the resto one time) , but due to the adapters the rims are 1" too wide for the Duster, exactly the thickness of the adapters. I want to keep the 14's because of my budget. Converting to 15's would mean new rims and tyres and when not using the adapters I would have to convert the rear axle... Pretty costly, want to avoid that
 
There was an outfit here in the Twin Cities that sold me a set of 15 x 7 mopar ralley wheels SBP, they had made them up from 14 x 5 stock wheels. Put 225 70 15s on them.

Sheridon Performance.

74 Dart pictured here SBP front and rears

205 70 14 fronts
225 70 15 rears

2019042595113922.jpg
 
IMHO.

If you are going to spend the cash to widen your wheels, go to 15" and have custom 5x4 SBP centers.

Forgot to mention Stockton wheel (iirc) will convert a 14"wheel to 15" wheel, I imagine they can widen at the same time
 
Thnx George Jets, they look nice Looking at your picture, I guess a 235 would fit too?
 
Dana67Dart said:
IMHO.

If you are going to spend the cash to widen your wheels, go to 15" and have custom 5x4 SBP centers.

Dana67Dart, I am not going to spend any cash to widen the wheels. A friend of mine will do it for me at his shop. Thats why I dropped the question. He welds and blasts the wheels for me and primers them afterwards. The only question he asked was: how wide you do want them? Tyres wont be a problem as long they are pretty common size. He can arrange those too, question is: will I regret it because I could have gone wider. Or Have I gone too wide? That is pretty much my main issue. Thnx for the input!

Forgot to mention Stockton wheel (iirc) will convert a 14"wheel to 15" wheel, I imagine they can widen at the same time
Click to expand...
 
Dana67Dart, btw, another problem I didnt mention..: I am in Europe, the Netherlands
 
jefcharger said:
Thnx George Jets, they look nice Looking at your picture, I guess a 235 would fit too?
Click to expand...

Dusters have a bigger wheel opening on the rear quarters compared to the Darts so they can accept a bigger tire.

235s go into the 60 series tires . . . a little less height than the 70 series.

Depends on the look you are going for.
 
George Jets, yeah, I was thinking that too. To solve the problem of the car being too high in the front I was thinking to go to 205/70 instead of the 75 currently. That way the stance will be better I assume, when 235/60/14 are mounted in the back.
There would be only a difference in height less than a fifth of an inch I calculated. Speedometer would only be 0.78 % off
 
Last edited:
I had 14" tires and wheels on my Valiant for a while. To give you an idea on stance, here is what it looked like with 205/70/14 in front on a 5" wide rim, and 245/60/14 in the rear on a 7" wide rim. I had no trouble at all fitting them in my wheel wells. The are sitting on my tired 53 year old worn out suspension.

DSCN5272.JPG


After a while I needed new tires, and wasn't going to put money into the 14" setup for the reasons listed by others - tire selection is very poor. I went to 15" rims from Wheel Vintique, which are just a hair over $100 each from Summit Racing, 215/65/15 on a 6" wide rim in the front and 246/60/15 on a 7" wide rim in the back. I still have no trouble fitting them in the wells, and these are still SBP. Same worn out suspension.

P7140794.JPG


Your rear wells on a Duster are quite a bit wider than mine. The Duster experts will chime in, but I'm pretty sure a 255/60/15 fits easy. If you want to stay with the 14" rims for economy's sake, BF Goodrich is about the only game in town for tires. If it was me and I had to get new/bigger tires, I'd pop the extra money for 15" SBP rims and go that route.

20160921_181023_1480009519488_resized.jpg


Oops. Somehow the tan 14" rims showed up on another picture and I can't figure out how to get rid of it! :(
 
Tinman2, thnx..!!
That car has the perfect looks on its wheels... 275 would probably better he says... Still pretty wide
I will have to recalculate.. 295/50 would mean its height is 50% of 295 mm. Somewhere just a little less then 6 inches then
 
@halfafish: that is very cool, thnx, i love the stance with the 205/70 combined with the 245's. It makes me wanna go to 7 inch with a 235, 245 or 255. In front i will need to go from the current 205/75/14 on a 5.5 J rim to a 205/70/14 on that same rim. In the back I can easily go from 5.5 J to 7J. The added one and a half inch on just the outside of the rim cannot be stretched to 7 and a half I guess? Backspace will remain stock

Btw: what does SBP mean? Small bolt pattern I guess?
 
There are several 15 inch SBP wheels available from Summit. Use 5x101.6mm as the bolt pattern, they don't list a 5x4 inch pattern. They also offer BF Goodrich and Cooper tires in 235-60-14 if you want to stay with your 14 inch wheels.

I don't know if they ship to the Netherlands, but I'm sure there are ways around that issue.
 
the 15in ralleys, and the 14in ralleys have the same dia center stamping. I sent a set of SBP 14in ralleys to Willamette Wheel in Portland 40+ yrs ago. I don't know if the are still there. They cut the centers out of the 14's and welded them into some blank 15in rims. voila. 15x7in SBP ralleys.
 
I had some 14 x 5.5 ralleys widened to 7.5 inches by cutting the front of the rim off and adding a larger piece and the back spacing is stock. I'm running 265 50 14's on them. I did this about 15 years ago but if I had to do it today I would go with 15's as there is so much better tire selection. On the front I have 215 60's 14's.

demnicpost.jpg
 
First of all: thnx so far everyone for thinking along and helping
I might have another solution with which I might keep my original 14" steel rims original. I have the opportunity tot get some steel 15" rims that come off a pt cruiser, it has 5 x 100 bolt pattern. Does anyone know if these will fit my drumbrake rear axle Duster? Especiially the backspace I would like to know. I can have the outer side widened for free to gain more dept. And how about the center bore. I think it might be slightly too small, but I could have that bored larger I guess. Opinions, marks or suggestions please? Thanx again
 
I don't think the 5 x 100 pattern is close enough to bolt on a 5 x 4 car. 100mm is 3.93", although I haven't tried it myself. I don't think I would do it. Also a FWD rim does has tons of backspace so that part might be ok.

Can you try to bolt it on the car?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top