16" 8 bolt Split Rims for 1.5 ton Australian Chevrolet Trucks

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Philippe Jeanneau

As for the original Canadian 10 x 7.25 bolt circle (8 Bolt) wheel, I have been given the following information by someone kind enough to drive 500 Km to a museum in Australia where this truck resides... His attached diagram illustrates the backspace as well as the depth of the outer half... Mind you, these measurements were taken from the spare wheel on top of the truck...

If you take the last image (CMP wheel for reference) since I have nothing else, we could safely say that the width of the outer lip is approximately 1-1/16" or 26.98 mm...

So, if we take the outer wheel half measurement of 100 mm, minus the lip or 26.98 mm, = 73.02 mm. Following suit, take the inner backspace measurement of 124 mm minus 26.98 mm = 97.02 mm...

To finalize (trying to obtain the true width of the wheel) 73.02 mm + 97.02 mm + 15.00 mm ( two combined wheel flanges) = 185.4 mm or 7-9/32... a hair over 7-1/8"... So it seems that these Canadian wheels were not 6" wide, but about 7-1/8"... Remember also that a tire that was about 260mm wide was fitted to this rim in most cases...

Is this closer to the truth? Unless someone else has this exact rim without a tire, and can provide exact measurements with photos, this is all I have after a year of digging...

Hello Philippe,

Very nice that someone (a MLU member?) went through the trouble of getting you those measurements. What I see there is wheel with a diameter of 18 inch. You refer to it as Canadian wheel, but this wheel was not made in Canada (or the UK) but only in Australia.

I think you have no other options than:
1) Source a set of 18" wheels from Australia.
2) Have a set of rims manufactured, going by the dimensions you got here as a guide line. As long as your new wheel dimensions are close to those in your measurements, and the tyre will fit, you will be fine. The tyre of choice will dictate a wheel width as it is related to the wheel diameter. E.g. check the specs for the Simex ST24/SA24 on my webpage: http://www.mapleleafup.nl/cmpvehicles/tyres_900-16.html.

Speaking of tyres, your choice of 18" tyres is very limited, so I would opt for:
3) Buy a set of 16" (or 20") W.D. spilt rims and use these as-is, or have the centers welded/ machined to fit your hub.

I am not sure which type of "Desert Chev" you're trying to recreate, but I am sure that a much more than presentable vehicle can be built by making some shortcuts to make things practical? From what I have seen so far it looks great already!

Hope this helps