Original wheels?

cwdtmmrs said:
If they are 4.5" wide with the 1/8" hole, then I would say that they came off of a M38
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well that is entirely possible... I rescued the truck from a potato filed on the Idaho Oregon boarder in 2004... common for farmers here used what ever was available to keep they stuff going, I pulled the full set of five off a 54 donor that was carved up and sold off, the width I gave is best I can recall as I did the full restore quite some years ago. I have a rim gauge and will double check their in the morning.
I have a substantial Willys parts hoard that I have been liquidating this year and my dozens of usable rims were the first of my parts to get bought up......that suprsized me a bit as reproductions are well worth the investment and are a reasonable cost considering the cost to restore and qualty powder coat a full set of wheels.
the 58' restore is a daily driver not a museum piece so it having exact OEM wheels was not something I considered in the build.

I'm new to this group and it's great to have so such information at my finger tips.... especially for purist seeking trophy's and museum pieces... thanks
 
Scenic Idaho said:
the width I gave is best I can recall as I did the full restore quite some years ago. I have a rim gauge and will double check their in the morning.
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Well then, with this new information about memory, I will bet that they are stock 16x5 rims.
 
I think it's entirely possible for a Jeep dealer to swap around tires on a new Jeep to satisfy a customer. "I want that truck with those tires." Done!
diggerG
 
diggerG said:
I think it's entirely possible for a Jeep dealer to swap around tires on a new Jeep to satisfy a customer. "I want that truck with those tires." Done!
diggerG
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Sure is... the Jeep dealership that my buddy did parts sales for always had a pile of new take-off Wrangler tires and wheels. Mostly from Rubicons that were getting lift kits before they left the dealership.
 
My experience as a master Journeymen while working at a few GM dealers in Chicago and SoCal dealers had us doing tons of "dealer
upgrades" and mods on new front line vehicles, wheels & tire swaps were common.... A large Jeep dealer I spent sometime at just up the I5 Fwy from
Laguna Beach did some serious lifts and oversize tire installs, usually on new Jeeps that had been stolen off the lot and recovered in Mexico that had to be rehabbed and repaired after a drunk & fun filled weekend on a Mexican beach.
this all just before the big law suits against Chrysler over the BS jeep rollover center of gravity issue. of course Chrysler jumped on the oversized tire issue as creating the problem and directed their dealers to no longer do Lifts or oversized wheel/tires on new Jeeps at their dealerships.

We who were in the trenches doing service and repairs found irony that the fact the video footage of the rollover test that was used in the media to sway public opinion in favor of the class-action lawyers was of stock jeeps with out lifts and oversized tires.... old time jeep'ers understood any vehicle with high ground clearance, narrow & short wheel bases will be more prone to roll over at lower speeds and especially at fwy speeds, a trade off most of us with reasonable level IQ's understood we were taking.
 
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