wide 5 steel wheel vs late bay disc

Early Bay Forum

Help Support Early Bay Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Phid

Active member
Joined
Sep 11, 2011
Messages
27
Reaction score
0
Howdy

I'm newbie to this site so hopefully someone can help. My 69 Westy has late bay discs on the front and and late bay drums on the back with 113 stud pattern. I am wanting to convert back to stock wide 5 4" steels. I have used a 10mm 113 to 205 adaptor and all fits fine on the back. However on the front the steel wheel is fouling on the brake caliper.

Can anyone advise how I can get around this? I assume I need a slimmer caliper (if one exists for this brake set up) or a different wheel. Obviously a late bay 14" steel will clear the disc - however, the plan is to use solids (ideally) with the deep dished hubcaps. Can you successfully fit these hubcaps to the late bay wheels? I have one late bay wheel and it has 3 'blobs' moulded into the wheel which appear to be for hubcap fitting rather than the clips as on the early wheels. The deep hub cap will not push onto these blobs.

Thanks in advance.

Phid
 
Hello mate,, welcome to the site, I`m sure you`ll enjoy it on here as it`s fairly chilled out. 8) As far as your problem with the discs, where exactly is it touching ???? Would a 15" wide 5 clear the caliper ?? What is a `disc brake' anyway :? I`m sure I`ve heard of them, it was on back to the future or startreck or something like that :lol: Not sure who had the thread up a while back but from memory, a combination of 15" wide 5s and a little surreptitious grinding of the cast on the caliper seemed to sort it out. Go very carefull what you`re grinding though and I personally wouldn`t take off much more than the roughness if you get my drift. :mrgreen:

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,, And welcome again :mrgreen:
 
Thanks for info, however I was hoping to use 14's if at all possible as 15's are hard to get hold of and im trying to use what i already have. I wonder if grinding the back of the wheel would achieve the same - although grinding anything doesn't fill me with confidence!
 
I wouldn't start grinding wheels brother. You would definitely have to get them properly balanced for a start. It'd be easier to grind the caliper a little I would have thought.
 
Here is what I did to my calipers to get my 14s to fit

054.jpg


053.jpg


And fit they did

057.jpg


Just
 
Yeah, grind the caliper as long as its not too extreme.

I had to grind my Ghia ones to fit Sprints, but its no problem.
 
Great - thanks for the info.

Those calipers look a fair bit shinier than mine!!

Did either of you need to use spacers as well?

Thanks
Phid
 
Also, how much have you ground off - presume just the top part of the caliper?
 
No spacers required in my case tho depends on thickness of your adaptors, and its a case of grind a bit, fit the wheel, grind a bit, fit the wheel, grind a bit.......you get the idea :lol: tip: put some boot polish on the wheel and then it will mark the caliper where it rubs.......

Just
 
Cheers mate. Managed to slice a finger :shock: on Saturday so will have a go at this when I can use my hands properly again!! :?
 
Have now done as you suggest and all is well.

Thanks for your help.
 
Dragging up an old, old thread here but figured it's better than starting from scratch.

Just wondering if anyone else has ground down their calipers to clear 14" steelies recently?

I haven't tried chopping mine yet but the casting looks different to Mr creationblue's and it seems like A LOT of metal would need to come off. Any thoughts or advice on which type / brand of calipers can be ground would be much appreciated :mrgreen:
 
i had same problem fitting widefives and Late disks +adapter.
i was lucky to found solution.
One of my rims had different rim profile. Similar As Late bay.
Checked the rim markings and found it was Kronprinz KPZ rim.

Asked around and found complete set KPZ rims.
No grinding the caliber needed.
 
That's great - thanks for the advice!
Good to know all 14s are not the same... will have to keep an eye out :msn4:
 
Thanks tyg! :mrgreen:

Just missed a set on ebay this afternoon... only 20 miles away too. Will keep looking :)
 
Bumping a semi old thread. So those wheels that seem to have a slightly different profile, did they work fine using an adapter from small 5 to wide 5 on your late bay conversion? I wanted to make a better brake setup for my bus and that looks to be the best solution.
 

Latest posts

Top