Identify These Wheels, and Tell Me What Tires Will Fit

So I found these wheels at our property, but there's no car around there that these would have belonged to that I know of. They're pretty cool artillery wheels, they're 17"s (from where the tire mounts that is, they're 18 1/2" overall from the edge of rim). Appear to be a 5 on 4.5". My question is about the width, they're only about 3 3/8" wide from the inside where the bead would sit (second pic), and about 4 1/2" across from the edge of the rims (third pic). So what size tires will fit on these? I'd like to run as skinny as I can in front and wide as I can in back, but I don't know how wide I could actually go. Help?

Double check the bolt circle. If they really are 5 on 4.5", then they are probably early Mopar. But they look a lot like '36 Chevrolet wheels, which were 17" and had a oddball 5 on 4.25" bolt circle, which can be easily confused. As far as tires, you can run 7.50's on the rear and 5.25/5.50's up front. My brother-in-law has that exact setup on his '33 Ford Pickup. He machined the hubs & axles for the 4.25" bolt circle. Not the easiest application, but it looks killer...

That's a Ford artillery wheel.
You can run a real skinny tire on those and a tire shop can help there

Jim

Old Iron said:

That's a Ford artillery wheel.

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Nope. Ford didn't use a small bolt circle until 1949 when they went to 4.5" on passenger cars.
'48 and back was 5.5".

B E D has a better answer, I didn't know about the Mopar deal
I learned something today Kool

Jim

It's hard to tell the bolt pattern with a tape measure, I'll get a straight edge or calipers and figure it out for sure. But that answers my question, I wasn't sure if anything over 6 wide would "work" right. I don't want it to look like I have balloons for rear tires

Here's the easiest way I know to measure the bolt pattern....Measure from the center line of one hole to the back of the second hole as shown in the pic below (this shows center to center, but you need to measure to the back of the second hole)

Here ya go...

These are 1934-ish 17 inch Dodge wheels. These have a DB logo stamped on them somewhere (I don't remember where).

Did Flipper find a barn find in his own barn? Were the front hubs and drums drilled for the 4 1/2" bolt pattern?

alright got the calipers out there and yes they are 5 on 4.25". And I'll look for a stamp mark tomorrow just to see what I can find.

That's what I thought. They are 1936 Chevrolet. Cool wheels, but you have to do some machining to make them work. The obvious lug pattern issue as well as the wheel center being small. You may have to turn down your hub & axle centers a bit for clearance.

Blue Eyed Devil said:

That's what I thought. They are 1936 Chevrolet. Cool wheels, but you have to do some machining to make them work. The obvious lug pattern issue as well as the wheel center being small. You may have to turn down your hub & axle centers a bit for clearance.

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Were they only in 36? Used em for just a year and then changed?

The center hole won't be much of a problem, looks like it shouldn't need much more than 1/8" or so taken off to clear the hub. However the rotors are 5 on 4.5", so am I stuck buying adaptors, or is it safe to punch out the holes in the wheels a bit and run some bigger tapered lug nuts? I'm guessing adaptors are the best bet but I'm just curious if anyone has drilled out the wheels with any success...

A-body Mopars were 5X4.25. Don't know how easy it would be to use those but its an option. Or you could sell those, I'm sure a Chevy restorer would love to have those and you could get wheels that fit.

Any machine shop can redrill your rotors and axles.

Chevy used those wheels in '35 and '36. '34's were wire wheels. '37's changed to 6 bolt pattern.

Don't try to enlarge the bolt holes. You'll bugger up the cone shaped seat and the nuts will never fit properly. The wheels become scrap at that point.

Like the guys say, make the pattern fit the wheel, find another wheel, or bite the bullet and buy adapters.

I'll probably just buy the adaptors then, they're only $60 for 2. My rotors are at the machine shop as we speak being bored out to fit the bearings for this axle set up, but I reckon it would cost more than $60 bucks to have them redrill them for 4.25".

And I'd like to stick with these wheels, just 'cause we found em on our property laying around with the truck we're rodding, so they have some sentimental value.

late 30's international pick up maybe???? looked at one this pasted weekend , and had wheels that looked a lot like that on it... 5 on 4.5 bolt pattern

I just sold a 36 Chevy that had these exact wheels