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| A wire Riviera hub cap and newly painted whitewalls. I wonder how this has held up? |
This is a picture of a painted wide whitewall that I made around ten years ago. I have used it as my avatar on different sites.The wheel has been sitting outside face down in the ivy for all those years after I photographed it. What kind of shape is it in? How has the paint held up? Lets take a look.
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| That guy in the picture must have steady hand.! |
There are still paint your own whitewall kits available. I was just checking back on the H.A.M.B. (Hokey Ass Message Board) and some posters recommend this white rubber material while others said that they have used white roofing paint. What I used was recommended in an issue of Roll and Pleats, a British hot rodding magazine, simple white spray primer.
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| They were still selling these at Grand Auto stores when I worked there in the 1970's. |
"Port a walls" are a white rubber disc that you place between the wheel tire bead and the rim. User's experiences have varied, but these have been available since the 1950's. They are genuine, vintage, hot rodding accessory parts.
There will be those out there who will decry the use of anything but an authentic reproduction whitewall tire. These are the guys that keep Coker tire in business. Nothing wrong with this. I would go this way too, if I had the extra bucks. There's a company named Blockley Tires that can provide some performance radials for my Mark VII. This car shares wheel sizes with the XK140 and 150 and early Astons as well. They are just too much money for me now. Besides where's the fun in just spending money?
I had a set of "ground" whitewall radials made up for my '56 Cadillac. One of Calderon's tire shops ground them down. it's a noisy and quite smelly process but if you start with a raised while letter tire you can end up with a 2'1/2 inch wide whitewall, not too bad. I went back for a second set and I was informed that the Boss didn't want to offer that service anymore, probably because it was so time consuming.
I've read lots of posts on different forums that related unsatisfactory results with that rubber tire paint. I had been a fan of the British custom car little book, Rolls and Pleats. In one article the author shared his experience of painting his own sidewalls with ordinary white spray primer. I decided to give it a try on a spare wheel that I had around. Masking is important so I tried to be as careful as possible.
Several coats later I was quite pleased. The primer covered the base rubber well, and it had a satin finish that didn't look too thick with visible brushstrokes. The photo of this wheel has served as my avatar for years. What happened to the actual wheel? Well I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I left it sitting out for six or seven years in that ivy that is in the background in the photo. How has it fared out there in the wild? I don't know yet. I'm planning to dig it out, clean it off and see. I will document the results here.
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| Face down in the ivy for years. I knocked most of the caked on dirt off for this picture. |
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| This was after some brushing off. |
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| You can see some cracking and color loss near the rim. |
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| This is after the second cleaning with Castrol Super Clean. The hubcap still needs more attention but the quality of these caps can't be denied. |
I'm interested in these DIY tires because my Mark VII needs tires badly and I don't want o buy authentic style repop radials, yet. I've been researching tires and I know that I need a set that has a taller sidewall. A 40 aspect sidewall just isn't going to look right and more importantly won't fit. A 215/70 16 wheel would be the closest equivalent. I don't mind a little shorter tire. Those ancient Atlas "pie crusts" look pretty ugly to me. I plan on using an SUV rated tire, as a passenger tire of that size isn't intended for an almost four thousand pound car. They will also have a higher load rating and stiffer sidewalls which would hopefully help the handling. I plan on using a tire like this;
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| I 've had good luck with Futura tires. They are made by Cooper and are priced right. |
I would then paint the white sidewalls on, similar to the wheel in my avatar. One of my Jaguar forum people set up a set of tires like this on his Mark VII. These tires can be purchased for around 65.00 on sale, while a used tire would be fifty bucks, and trying to find four identical tires might be a challenge. I'm not sure if I could run these tubeless on my original rims, I'm thinking not. Something else to consider.
As it turns out this Buick wheel has the same size lug pattern as my '51 Jag, but is a 15 lnch rim. This particular tire is a 225/70 15 inch radial, similar in size to that SUV tire above. If I switched wheels then I could run tubeless radials. There are concerns with wheel set back, and fitting under the rear spats as well as other clearance issues. Since I've got the wheel available I'm just going to try this one on and see what happens.
Updates as they occur.
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