Steel rims

[Doug Bowen]

Looking to start a '50s period 32 Ford highboy...

I found AMT Firestones / slicks tire packs.

Does someone offer stock steel wheels, baby moons and trim rings as aftermarket items?

All I found was dubs, and the like.

Any help greatly appreciated.

D

[Quick GMC]

I think I have a whole set of those I am not using. From the new tool 32 kit

[Ace-Garageguy]

Looking to start a '50s period 32 Ford highboy...

...Does someone offer stock steel wheels, baby moons and trim rings as aftermarket items?

Just for clarification, the stock wheels for a '32 Ford are wires.

Pressed steel-center wheels like you're wanting would have been sourced from something built later.

Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland, Scenes Unlimited, Modelhaus and even our very own moderator Casey (sells as "annalitt" on ebay) as well as several other aftermarket sources offer a wide variety of quality "stock" wheels in resin.

Unfortunately, neither Modelhaus nor R&M have online catalogs where you can actually see the parts.

Click here for Scenes Unlimited: http://www.scenesunltd.com/WHEELS.html

These are some of Casey's.

You can also search "Toys and Hobbies>Models and Kits>Automotive>wheels " on ebay. There are currently over 2500 listings.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Art Anderson]

Just to clarify things a bit here: In the early 1950's, builders of hot rods (street rods) tended to gravitate to Fords from Model A's to '32-'34 Fords (in fact there was a frequent argument back then as to just when "Hot Rod" ended and "Custom Car" began).

One of the beauties of using Model A and early Ford V8 parts and components was the general interchangeability (seemingly old Henry Ford wanted parts from newer Fords to be readily adaptable to older models). In addition, by 1950, junkyards were full of old Fords, and piles of old Ford parts--as well as auto parts stores with brake rebuilding kits for 30's Ford brakes.

A very common setup, even through the late 1950's was a '32 Ford (built any style you can imagine), the chassis set up with a Ford torque-tube rear axle (some used the standard '32 Ford rear spring, the more daring adapted Model A rear crossmembers into the rear of the Ford frame so they could use the high, double-arched Model A rear spring, which when shackled to the lower '32 axle spring mounts, lowered the rear of the Deuce several inches. Up front, a dropped front axle did the same thing.

For brakes and wheels, a set of 1940 Ford brakes was a classic setup--that being the first year of truly conventional hydraulic brakes coupled with a narrow 5-bolt lug pattern wherein the wheel lugs bolted into a forged steel hub (1936-39 Ford wheels, the so-called "wide five" wheels, bolted to the outer edge of the brake drums which put a lot of strain on brake drums, causing them to bend or warp with repeated side impacts--with curbs and the like). The '40 Ford brake drum bolt pattern is the same as Model A's mid-1928 through 1931, 1932-35, and 1940-48, again making wheel choices (from junkyard parts) pretty wide. Needless to say, 1940 Ford juice brakes got the call a lot on those earlier Deuce hot rods. 1935 Ford wheels, being the last year of "wire wheels" at Ford, and the scarcest 6:00-16's, didn't often get used, due to the difficulty in finding a set that didn't have at least one or two bent spokes by then, but there were rods which had them.

With that in mind, the "rat rod" wheels and tires that Revell introduced in such as their '29 and '31 Model A kits are perfect, as those were probably the most commonly seen rims and tires in Ford-based hot rodding in the 1950's.

By the end of the decade, speed equipment manufacturers were beginning to offer "adapter" plates which bolted to the 1940-48 hubs with one set of holes, and then matched the slightly different bolt patterns of say, Chevy steel wheels (there were other styles of wheel adapters made as well, to adapt other makes of steel wheels to a Ford-based Deuce. These made it possible to use Ford 16" rear wheels and the new-for-1956-57 14" steel rims from Detroit.

So, the "field" is pretty much wide open for you.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

Hats off to Art for filling in the blanks and telling the rest of the story.

One tiny point...the juice brakes were available from '39 onwards (Deluxe) and through '48...they're almost a bolt-on to the earlier cars.

[Art Anderson]

Hats off to Art for filling in the blanks and telling the rest of the story.

One tiny point...the juice brakes were available from '39 onwards (Deluxe) and through '48...they're almost a bolt-on to the earlier cars.

However, the '39 Ford hydraulic brakes were little more than a conversion of the existing parts to accept hydraulic cylinders in place of the mechanical "monkey motion", and were never really considered to be nearly as good as 1948-48 brakes.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

However, the '39 Ford hydraulic brakes were little more than a conversion of the existing parts to accept hydraulic cylinders in place of the mechanical "monkey motion", and were never really considered to be nearly as good as 1948-48 brakes.

Art

I guess it all depends on where you get your information, and whether you build cars for a living, like me, and have to use the parts in the real world.

All the '39-41 backing plates are identical, as are the brake shoes and wheel cylinders, and function exactly the same way. '39-'41 have an eccentric adjusting mechanism that can be fiddly to maintain.

'42-'48 are the same (though there are minor differences on '46-48 that do not effect function) with a redesigned adjusting system. Other than that, '39-'48 are pretty much identical.

The much tricker setup (because of the self-energizing and full-floating action of the shoes), is early ('48 on) Ford F-1 and F-100 brakes, which are modern (as far as drum brakes go) in overall design. Same mostly bolt-on conversion, and same wheel bolt pattern. The rears do have to be modified to accommodate e-brake linkage, however.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Doug Bowen]

Wow. What the heck did we do before computers and forums? This was great. I found somebody to trade parts with; found sites to buy from in the future; and, got a whole bunch of info on specifics on the real deals.

I have been in love with Studebakers all my adult life (owned 11 life-sized ones over my time span) and really appreciate the club and forum that I now belong to for that part of my world. The devil is truly in the details with this stuff.

You guys give me the same input for the model part of my life. ...just incredible that this kind of thing is available on line.

Thanks...

D

[High octane]

There are a lot of steel wheels available from many sources including Modelhaus. You can checkout the links at Rocketfin or SoCalCarCulture and find a ton more of steel wheels by a number of resin casters. There are more steel wheels available than you will ever use.

[Tom Geiger]

Since you mentioned steel wheels with both baby moons and trim rings...

AMT 1957 Ford kit, issues prior to mid-90s had these steel wheels and baby moons.

These wheels, all chrome representing the baby moon and trim ring, are in the Deora kit.