Widening Wheels

[eschaider]

Brian,

spdbrake's link to Weldcraft shows several pics of how the widening process is achieved. In general they choose a spot on the backside (usually) of the wheel to cut the casting and preserve the original rim lip.

If the wheel is being narrowed the 'extra' material is cut out and the remaining two pieces welded back together. If it is being widened tha additional material is inserted and the three pieces welded back together.

The weld together process used to bother me because of the potential for misalignment and then out of balance etc problems. Shops like WeldCraft use a good fixturing technique to maintain proper positioning prior to welding and when they do weld it is a work of art. The finished wheel is both strong and in balance.

With a weld that it is facing the inside of the chassis I would just leave it's outer surface as welded — don't try to polish or machine it down. It is stronger as welded and no one can see it until you take the wheel off and then they are impressed with your creativity. Your approach to widening will put your welds on the side of the wheel facing the chassis, which is optimum.

Call the WeldCraft guys spdbrake dug up for you. Talk to them. I think you will be pleased with what you hear. They look like they know what they are doing. BTW decades ago before we could order wheels in the widths we can today it was very common to widen the rear wheels this way for big slicks. They worked, they were easy to balance, and I never saw one break even behind supercharged engines in race only applications.