Wheel-tire fit problem

[Foxer]

On my Crown Victoria project I have to fit some AMT Taurus rims the the Lindberg tires. The Lindberg tire ID (or that rim OD) is .59". The rims from the Taurus are .66" OD. The Lindberg tires are made of a fairly hard rubber. The interference is roughly 1/16", so I need to open the center of the tire about 1/32" all around. The tire rubber is much too stiff to stretch and would probably distort the tire too much if it would stretch enough.

The room for error is pretty slim.. the thickness of the outside rim edge ... so whittling away with a knife would be way too crude.

One way would be to fashion a punch from a tube of the same OD that I need. It's possible a tube with a 5/8" ID might work if I could find something with the right wall thickness.

Another method I though of would be to use a dowel with sandpaper glued around it to gradually open the tire center center to the diameter I need.

So, I put it out for discussion if anyone has any ideas or tricks.

Edited May 30, 2009 by Foxer

[fordsixty]

sorry to hear about your problem. this should help. a dremel with the larger sand paper roll. the small one would divet the tire too easily. start with high speed to remove the most material and lower speed to finish the size to fit i have done this several times with great success.

hope this helps.

dale

[flatheadgary]

fordsixty is right on. i do this all the time with a dremel. you can use 1/24th rims with 1/25th tires or any other rim that is bigger than the tire id. just go slow when you start cutting. it doesn't take to much grinding to go oversize. trust me on that.

[Foxer]

That sounds good guys. All my sanding drums are .6 plus in diameter so will have to start opening it up by hand till it fits in ... shouldn't take much The speed I expect it would cut throws some fear in me, but that's good to control how fast I try to cut it! The hardness of the tire rubber should be a help in keeping things round and with the cutting.

[fordsixty]

hey foxer, i just measured my sanding drums and the large ones are .550" and the small ones are .325". not much different; however, could make a huge difference.

[pibull63]

my first idea would be a sanding drum. unless you have acess to a lathe, you could bore it

[MikeMc]

try cold....Put the tire in the freezer first.....work quickly as it gets wet as it warms up!

[Foxer]

That's a great idea for those softer tires Mike. These are so rigid deformation shouldn't be a problem.

[E St. Kruiser50]

sorry to hear about your problem. this should help. a dremel with the larger sand paper roll. the small one would divet the tire too easily. start with high speed to remove the most material and lower speed to finish the size to fit i have done this several times with great success.

hope this helps.

dale

I agree also. I have several Dremel "Sanding drum sizes", and it's great to have options to see what works best.

I've "Re-sized tires several times sucessfully and this technique works great. Just slow goes it, as mentioned, as over-grinding can happen quickly.

Edited May 29, 2009 by Treehugger Dave

[Foxer]

Thanks everyone! It's so great to have you all to bounce ideas off of here! I thought using the Dremel sanding drum would just work too fast and would lose control. But, as everyone has recommended, it worked perfect!!

Used the small drum and it allowed controlled removal.. just took it slow and "measured twice". Now on to adapting the mounting hubs.

[Steven Zimmerman]

I've done this many times.....Remember those old 'Gatorback' tires AMT came out in (I think) the early 80's?....great looking tread.....small wheel diameter. I've taken MANY sets of those and converted them to a larger wheel dia. (up to about 18") by using a dremel tool with the sanding drum. I just eyeball em when I do em,but then I've done 20 or 30 sets of these,so I'm gettin purty good at it. One thing I've found,tho......only do one side at a time and just go in half way with the sanding drum (tryin to hog out the whole thing at once will bog down your Dremel) and be prepared to have a lot of semi-melted black plastic all over the place-SAFETY GLASSES are a MUST....Also,as the hole in the tire gets larger,the tire becomes more flexible.;watch your fingers. Another tip;never hold the dremel drum in one place while grinding,keep it in constant circular movement around the inside circumferance of the tire,or it will 'bite' into the tire taking out a big chunk-and ya gotta throw it out and start over. Don't try to remove all the melted junk on the inside of the tire with the sanding drum-get the diameter of the hole where you want it to be, then proceed to clean up the inside of the tire with a NEW Xacto blade......As far as I can tell,this will only work with the 'PVC'type tires, I havent figured out how to do those'soft rubber'type tires yet (like Pegasus,etc)........Steven Zimmerman aka the'Z'man (BTW,superglue works GREAT on these tires; I'm workin on slicing them apart to widen them,but thats another story......)

[Foxer]

Oh man, Steve .. sectioning tires to widen. I guess if the tread is right it should be simple .. once you get over the cut it straight problem! Will take a few tires to do that too!

Thanks on your comments. Doing one side at a time passed thru my mind but I just did the whole cross-section at once. The hardness of these tires helped that a lot ... may have been another story with the softer ones. I pretty much did it as you say ... kept the drum going round and round inside the tire and not pressing it into the tire much.

[Foxer]

After much thought and fitting of various tubes, the hubs just fell together. The original wheels, after some grinding down to the Ford centers, fit perfectly into some 1/4" tubes fitted over the Taurus wheels and everything is tight and centered. As you see, this is a simple metal axle chassis and so it will remain for this simple build.

Thanks again to everyone helping with their experiences with wheel fitting.

Edited May 30, 2009 by Foxer