Summit smoothies wheels...

[dogfishlake]

A little more progress today. My laser cutter jammed out some concepts for the cap adapter. We may roll our own rings out of stainless. He made some strips that can be rolled into a circle, bead rolled, and interlocked/tig welded. Also some donuts for adapting the Toyota cap to the new ring.

It looks like no matter what, there will be a gap between the hub cap and the wheel at the outer edge. It looks good still but it doesn't sit tight to the wheel like the original.

 

[Pierps]

Nice! Can you get away with just painting the new ring and welded area? Or will the whole cap need to be re-chromed?

 

[dogfishlake]

Nice! Can you get away with just painting the new ring and welded area? Or will the whole cap need to be re-chromed?

It might not effect the face at all actually. The Toyota cap has a back piece and the front piece so I am hoping to just mod the back piece to fit the Vintiques wheel.

I did completely remove (ruin) a hubcap to see how deep it can set to try to minimize the gap between the edge of the cap and the wheel face and it still has about a 1/4" gap. That's a bummer but it really still looks good and is pretty much unnoticeable. It's not bad enough for me to give up!

 

[SW20]

I bought Vintiques Smoothies - 15" x 6". They won't fit my FJ40 unless I add a spacer.

I've read that others are having good luck with the 16" Smoothies.

The Vantiques that are 16x7 with 4inch back spacing will fit. I had a set a while back on my 1979 Fj40. No issues whatsoever.

These are the ones I had:

Wheel Vintiques 12 Series Smoothie Wheels 12-670604

 

[76 PTO]

Keep working at it. There are a lot of guys im sure looking to get a hubcap on a 15 x 8 wheel.

 

[76 PTO]

Wheel vintiques has a 16x8 6 lug Chevy rally that has a different inner ridge that the hub cap might fit in better.

 

[Sheck44]

Had a custom set of smoothie wheels built by The Wheelsmith out of Cali, 16x8 powder coated white fitted with OE hubcaps (5) ... picking these up tomorrow and will show some pictures

Cheers
Steve

 

[dogfishlake]

Had a custom set of smoothie wheels built by The Wheelsmith out of Cali, 16x8 powder coated white fitted with OE hubcaps (5) ... picking these up tomorrow and will show some pictures

Cheers
Steve

It would be interesting to see how they made the caps work. If they have a wheel they sell that had a larger diameter center to allow for factory style clips, that would be awesome. They would sell a bunch here I suspect. The stopper with the Wheel vintiques smoothie is that the center circle (around the lug holes is too small of a diameter and has to be worked around.

 

[dogfishlake]

I might as well update what I know now. I haven't done much other than think on the cap solution. I kept thinking I had to roll a bead in the stainless band to make it work right. I now think that it would be a lot easier to weld on a ring of stainless wire around the band to make the lip for snapping into the wheel. I don't have the parts here at my shop today but I will try to grab what I need and make another sample soon.

The caps I make quickie like have survived fine so far on my 40, but they really still need to be better than they are.

(also need to post my 3.5" bs 16x7 smoothie wheels up in classifieds as I don't need them now)

 

[76 PTO]

Steel Wheels w/ Hubcaps; Old School Is Cool; Toyota 16x7’s w/ FJ40 Hubcaps
This guy did something cool he modded vw clips to go on a toyota rim and put it on his montero.

 

[76 PTO]

 

[76 PTO]

 

[Sheck44]

New wheel pics .. they welded a compression ring on the back side of the cap that includes a compression fit into the wheel centre
You'll notice the 3 nubs for the compression fitting in Pic #2

IMG_0089 by Steve Heck, on Flickr


IMG_0091 by Steve Heck, on Flickr


IMG_0090 by Steve Heck, on Flickr

 

[tucker74]

Steve,

I'll buy one of those if you have any more made .... have one of these wheels for my spare.

Tucker

 

[White Stripe]

Looks like he welded the smoothie hub caps to the factory hub caps.

 

[Sheck44]

Looks like he welded the smoothie hub caps to the factory hub caps.

Yes, and it works really well
Tucker, sorry buddy ... BUT call Rex he'd be glad to make you one. Just send him a hub cap
theWheelsmith.net Home for Custom Wheels and Accessories

Steve

 

[dogfishlake]

Looks good. That's what I had done on my wheels too. I just dont like how much the edge of the cap is away from the wheel but then again you really can't see it much.

Cost isn't bad to do your own. 15 ish for the Toyota cap and 10-12 for the smoothie cap. Just cut the dome off the smoothie cap and the lip off the Mr T cap.

 

[Sheck44]

Looks good. That's what I had done on my wheels too. I just dont like how much the edge of the cap is away from the wheel but then again you really can't see it much.

Cost isn't bad to do your own. 15 ish for the Toyota cap and 10-12 for the smoothie cap. Just cut the dome off the smoothie cap and the lip off the Mr T cap.

Actually there is no gap, the cap was not actually snapped in the wheel, they are just sitting there in the pics I have above

Steve

 

[dogfishlake]

Actually there is no gap, the cap was not actually snapped in the wheel, they are just sitting there in the pics I have above

Steve

I don't know how he made that work but that's good. On mine there is still a lip you can grab with your fingers with the cap snapped on. It looks fine that way but I had hoped to get the lip of the cap flush with the wheel like the originals when installed .

 

[Rigger]

This is great! Nice idea!