55.2-59 What modern wheel works with original center cap?

I would like to know if anyone has used a modern smoothie type wheel with original style Chevy center caps? I purchased a new set of caps years ago and I’m tired of looking for old wheels with clips to use.

[57tailgater]

Looks like you can buy just the clips to put on non-original wheels. I googled 1957 Chevy truck hubcap clips and came up with links to them (like picture below) at Classic Parts, Tuckers, Bowtie Bits and ebay so they are out there.

Or you can do something like this: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...&postcount=408

Has anyone done this? I was thinking of doing it on a chrome smoothie.

[mr48chev]

Yep, you have to put the clips on so they will work and then hope you got the clips centered right so the caps don't wobble like the hubs on a clown car in a parade when you go down the street.

It might be productive to make yourself a drill guide off an original wheel to get the spacing right on the clips and get them centered. By that I mean cutting out a round piece of card stock that fits inside the clips and using a ball pein hammer tap the pattern of where the rivets are in the cardboard and tap out the outline of the center hole so you can use that or a more solid pattern made from that to mark your holes in the wheels you have to drill them.

[joedoh]

I just did this on a set of mobsteel wheels. the mosteels have a chevy rally center cap that looks too small.

its important to say, wheel vintiques makes Chevrolet caps in a variety of styles to fit their smoothie (rally cap) or gennie (8") or oem (10" cap) wheels. the prefix is WV-2030 then an A or a G or no suffix for the different styles.

I wanted stock style GMC caps and no one makes them. wheelsmith,net says they can make anything to fit anything but it comes at a cost, he quoted $160 per cap. not wanting to spend that, I bought an original clip style set of caps and a set of cheap rally poverty caps. it wasnt as simple as welding the rally mount to the clip cap on mine, although it may be on yours, I figured out that I needed to cut the clip cap down only slightly to let the entire rally poverty cap to be set in, leveled, and spot welded in. I used a piece of 11ga as a standoff



I used my 6" cutoff wheel in an angle grinder and held the cutoff wheel flush to the jig



then I put the unmodified rally cap in the hole, it was simple to get it centered and dot welds around it. the extra material in the bend of the rally cap kept it from burning through and I was happy.

I saw the WV caps, the Chevy bow tie cap looks good but I’ve had these factory style caps for years and always wanted to use them. I’ll try and see how difficult it is to fit them, if it’s beyond my skills then I’ll go with WV caps. Thanks

[joedoh]

they arent bowtie. they look just like the 47-53 clip cap and fit smoothie wheels.

https://www.jegs.com/i/Wheel-Vintiqu...030-A/10002/-1

I used them on a 49 chevy, they are SUPER high quality pieces.

[Lays Low]

Im also looking for this info. been looking at buying a set of gmc/chevy 2500 van wheels. they look like original but come in 16" and 8lug like I need for my 3800. Also wondering if the 17" steel wheels off a ram 2500 would easily allow centercaps. I havent seen any photos of it done yet.