Question about rims

[vancelot69]

I don't know if I should post this in this forum, or in the 69-72 Blazer/Jimmy forum.

My truck has the solid style rims. Yesterday while off-roading, I broke the valve stem on one of my front tires. A friend had the steel wheel spare off his '90 Toyota (it held air long enough for me to get home). If you notice, the offsets are way different. When I tried to put that rim on my front axle, it wouldn't go because the tie rod end & mount was in the way, but it went over the rear brake drum just fine.

My lead in question is, is the offset on a GM steel wheel set inward like on my aftermarket rim, or set outward like on my friend's Toyota spare? My main question is, how does an GM steel wheel fit around the tie rod end?

I also included a pic of how close the tie rod end is to my aftermarket rim.

[obijuan]

It's narrower. And in between the two wheels you have on hub mount surface vs back bead distance. Also known as backspace. Read up on it. Good stuff.

[andrewmp6]

The gm style is more like your rims.The toyotas are different because their steering arms are more inward then yours are so they can get away with the off set they use.And you might want to look in to short metal valve steams or anything that don't stick out so you can't knock it off.Or get off road rims that have the valve steams mounted more inside the rim hub.

[vancelot69]

Thanks for the info andrewmp6! I will look into both of those options (shorter stem & off road rims).

[andrewmp6]

Take a look at these rims http://www.intercotire.com/BIRDDOG.php or i have seen people take steel rims and welding a metal tube around the valve stem and even weld on extra metal on the bead edge to protect the tire and bead.

[1976gmc20]

The older GM rims have the center portion that mounts to the hub more or less centered in the rim, while the newer (1988+) rims have the mounting surface pretty much at the outside of the rim. So even though the bolt circle is the same, they will not interchange (don't ask me how I learned this ).

I think the reason is to allow the half axles on IFS to be longer and thus have less severe angle from the differential down to the hub.

If you flip the tire/wheel over and look at it from the back (inside) the difference is more obvious, as there is a "deep dish" appearance. In fact, I discovered that one of the 1988-98 wheels turned upside down makes a great self draining tub in which to store tire chains