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 Make your own Wide White Walls...TechJump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [50 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
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Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641    Location: Evansville, WI | I'm sure you all know that WWW tires are expensive. Very expensive. Few people realize that you can just make your own. Start with a narrow white wall, or raised white letter tire. To get the stripe, or white letters, there is a wide layer of white around the sidewall. When the tire is made, a white strip is put on the black tire body, then another layer of black is put on. When the tire is completed, the black is shaved off the narrow WW strip, or the surface of the letters. To make a WWW, all you have to do is shave more of the outer layer of black off. Don't worry about weakening the sidewall, because you're not removing that much rubber, and this is the same process that is used for WWW's. Start with a slightly worn 36 grit disk in a grinder. If it's to sharp(fresh) it tends to cut to fast and leave grooves. Go grind on some metal first if you're using a fresh disk. Once you start grinding, you will find the inner and outer edges of the white strip. Use these as a guide for your grinding. Use VERY light pressure. If you use to much, the rubber starts melting, and you'll get black streaks across the white. You also DON'T want to go through the white, because there's more black under it, and you'll end up with black spots. When I have it pretty well ground, I like to finish up with a DA and 80 grit paper. This isn't neccessary, but it leaves a better finish on the tire. Your edges won't be perfectly round because the white strip isn't round, and you'll probably have a 1/4"-1/2" black ring around the inside edge. Not perfect, but close enough that most people won't notice. And, you've just saved yourself a boatload of cash per tire by spending less than an hour on each tire. Even if you don't have the tools to do it, with the money you'll save, you can then go buy them. I highly suggest you practice on a few tires first to get the hang of it. It does make a mess, and smells like burnout, but that's not really a bad thing. You can see in this pic that we started with a "Widetrack Radial Baja." I spent maybe 20 minutes on the ground half. This method works for both Bias Ply, and radial tires. Happy grinding -Jeff  Edited by Bugman 2004-02-22 5:27 PM (tire2.jpg) Attachments ----------------  tire2.jpg (11KB - 1077 downloads) | ||
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| alumcanTandThd |
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Wise Old Village Idiot Posts: 3591   Location: Dellslow, West ("By God") Virginia ! | |||
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| Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641 Location: Evansville, WI | Yup, the grinder I use is one of those small air grinders. It uses a 4"-4 1/2" disk. Any larger in diameter, and it gets hard to do the inside edge without hitting the bead. As far as the roundness of the white, it varys from tire to tire, brand to brand. the outer edge(as well as the inner) is where the strip of white rubber stops. On that tire, it's only a 2 1/2" strip. Sometimes the strip is very even, sometimes it's kinda wobbly. It doesn't make much difference how you grind it, where the white stops, the white stops. Most newer tires are pretty straight. Becaus ethe letters, or narrow WW are shaved with a machine at the factory, the WW is symetrical. But because the rest of it is usually covered, the factory has no need to make the whole white layer perfectally strait. Here's a pic of an older JC Penny bias ply I did. It's kind of dirty and scuffed because it's been in my classroom for awhile. You can see the wobbles in it. It's about the worst one I've seen, and it's still pretty good. It started out as a narrow WW. A little more 80 grit sanding might help too, but it's good enough for what I use it for(display). In the first pic, it's a pertty good tire, and a lousy camera. But, it's still close enough to round that you'd probably never know it was home ground, not professionally shaved. P.S. It's much easier if the tire is off the rim, and you should probably rebalance it. Edited by Bugman 2004-02-23 4:48 PM (tire3.jpg) Attachments ---------------- tire3.jpg (10KB - 531 downloads) | ||
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| alumcanTandThd |
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Wise Old Village Idiot Posts: 3591 Location: Dellslow, West ("By God") Virginia ! | |||
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| Daven Anderson |
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Extreme Veteran Posts: 362 Location: Colorado, USA | I don't know of any 225 75 14 LT RWL's either, but really the original tire size for the typical 1957-61 FL car (7.50 × 14) would most closely translate as 205 80 14, so a 215 70 15 would be the 'plus one upsize' for that and a 225 70 15 would still work pretty well. People think of the original tires for 55-61 cars as being '75 series' aspect ratio, but really they were '80 series'... Of course the only downside to 'plus-sizing' is that you can't use the original wheel covers  Also, Alumcan is right that the white band is much thicker on the LT RWL tires than on RWL car tires, I see a few trucks that are almost shaved wide whites on the right side just from the curb contacts  PS: Jay Leno's '55 Buick Roadmaster (with the 572 GM crate engine) in this month's HOT ROD, this car is using 'wide whites' made from RWL 17" high performance tires (pro job without a doubt, but I wouldn't throw that Buick around too hard into a corner if I was him Edited by Daven Anderson 2004-03-01 11:24 PM | ||
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| Jessica Hendricks |
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| Instead of shaving all the way to the edge of the white, why dont you just measure it and not shave to the edge. normally you can see if you look closely where the white starts/stops. You can mark a trace line easily with a grease crayon. As for LT 14" tires, there is no such thing. There are no vehicles heavy enough to require anything more than the standard ply that would carry a heavy load range. BF Goodrich does make the Radial T/A (a tire of which im very fond of) and Michelin offer's the XC LT4. Both are excellent choices and would carry excellent sidewall support. You have to remember, the passenger rated truck tire is going to have a higher max load rating because it is a 4 ply and not a 2 ply standard like a car tire would be. My advise is to go with the white letter passenger rated truck tire for the 14" wheel. White shoe polish does the trick too :P I remember seeing an Ad from the 60's advertising "paint your own whitewalls". And ya'll think IM being silly Jessica | |||
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| Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641 Location: Evansville, WI | |||
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| Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641 Location: Evansville, WI | |||
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| Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641 Location: Evansville, WI | In this pic you can see a cross section of the tire shown above with 1/2 of it ground white. The top layer of black is very very thin, only a tad more than 1/64." It has a 2 ply sidewall and is an M+S(mud and snow), not an LT(light truck). That little bit of black is never going to be missed. However, you can see that the white is fairly thick. If you continue to grind it, it will get thin. If you stop as soon as you hit white, and avoid gouging the rubber, you'll be fine. -Jeff Edited by Bugman 2004-03-03 7:57 PM (tirecut.jpg) Attachments ---------------- tirecut.jpg (8KB - 491 downloads) | ||
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| Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641 Location: Evansville, WI | For anyone who doubted me make your own WWW tires technique, I had to make another set. Why did I need this second set you ask? Because I wore out the first set. Didn't have a single problem with them. Anyway, here's my latest home made pair. This pair both started out as narrow white walls. You might notice that the white wall is slightly thinner on one tire, thats because they are different model tires, and theres about 3/8" difference in the width of the white layer. $15 each for new used WWW tires is a pretty good deal in my book. On the car, you don't even notice the difference(you can only see one side of the car at a time anyway). Edited by Bugman 2005-09-20 3:19 AM (new tires.jpg) Attachments ---------------- new tires.jpg (54KB - 954 downloads) | ||
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| pistolgrip |
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Veteran Posts: 118 Location: Maryland | |||
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| JT Newman |
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Regular Posts: 95 Location: Espoo, Finland | pistolgrip - 2005-09-23 7:51 AM Here is another option I put those to my -64 VW about 6 months ago and they are quite OK. If there is right amount of tyre grease between tyre and those white walls, you can't hear (so much) squeal. But if there is too much grease, then... "Look mommy, an UFO!" | ||
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| Tuxedo |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 632 Location: Belford, NJ | |||
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| Mike M |
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Extreme Veteran Posts: 409 Location: Tampa, Florida | |||
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| forwardlookparts |
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Expert Posts: 2721 Location: Minneapolis | |||
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| 62chrysler |
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Account Suspended (Steve Hobby Alias) Posts: 3365 Location: North West Jorsey | |||
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| Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641 Location: Evansville, WI | |||
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| klattu |
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| klattu |
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| spikemike |
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Veteran Posts: 269 Location: Tampa, FL | |||
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| Bugman |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 641 Location: Evansville, WI | |||
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| 72sst |
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Extreme Veteran Posts: 327 Location: Orefield,Pennsylvania | I will simply round house kick the tire into a whitewall! | ||
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