Posted by Desoto61 [172.68.79.11] on Friday, October 21, 2016 at 06:57:42 :
In Reply to: Wheel solutions posted by Rod Aldrich [172.68.55.10] on Thursday, October 20, 2016 at 17:42:43 :
I converted for much the same reason, there was one shop in all of the 7-cities area I live in that wanted anything to do with the split rings. This way any tire shop can at least mount a tire. The options have already been stated below, but not really the advantages/disadvantages.
The VPW conversions: I have these, the biggest advantage to me was that they look right because they are the same BUDD center, just welded into a modern outer rim, and they are assembled really well. Two full perimeter welds mean I'd be more worried about the factory rivets holding the center to the old rim fragment than the welds holding that to the new outer rim. So you get the BUDD look with modern tire mounting design.
The downsides: You're limited to the size and width they offer which is a 17x8. 17 is a good size, lots of tire options there now, but 8" wide is a little tougher since most 35" and taller tires want an 8.5" wide rim minimum. They'll mount and work on the 8" but it's not recommended by the manufacturer and that could be a problem later if you have issues, and at $300-400/tire it's not cheap if the tire people decide not to cover a problem due to improper mounting. The backspacing is basically 0 so all that extra width is inboard, which can affect how tall you can go on that wider tire.
Otherwise minor annoyances are that the valve stem opening is in a kind of awkward location. They put longer stems on mine and it makes checking tires tricky. The assembly method leaves a small gap between the outer rim and the BUDD center. When I had mine blasted and powder coated I had sand coming out of that gap for a few days, but it also means there's basically no way to get powder/paint in there very well either.
Ultimately I still like them a lot, there's just something about that BUDD rim look that is part of these trucks IMO. Availability can be tricky as stated, they're popular!
The other option is to basically have a custom center cut for a standard rim, which is what the Boyce/MRW/etc. versions basically are. The benefits are you can practically select any size and width rim you want and spec your own backspacing, even get bead lock versions for that serious offroad/military look. Of course that means you have to figure all that out yourself, but you can basically fit any size tire you want at that point.
Biggest downside is looks, they're basically just flat plate welded into the center of a rim with the right hole pattern cut into it, so you can't really do the dished factory look, and if you have problems with fitment or the cutting you're stuck shipping wheels back and forth to fix it, or finding a local place to try and fix it, all at your cost most likely. With the conversions you know they'll mount since they're original BUDD centers.
The only other option is a limited selection of aluminum rims produced for the military, though they're as rare as the 4.30 ring and pinion set seems to be for our trucks.
Guess you could always try to build a hub converter to go from the BUDD pattern to something more modern. Most would consider it blasphemy but assuming you could find a modern truck wheel pattern that fits over the hub center you'd be able to order from just about any catalog in a million different designs, sizes, colors, and materials, just like swapping the axles with less work. But again you loose that BUDD rim look.
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