Welcome to Eircooled
Our Ethos is simple; We promote, maintain, and encourage the use of classic aircooled vehicles. We run the club in an open, inclusive, and democratic environment. We encourage all members to have an equal say and part to play in the club.
Register

[Wanted: Parts] Looking for advise on banded steelies on beetle

Mark_Iggy_Foy

Member
February 15, 2013
11
0
Co.Meath
Hi there! My name is mark and im 18rs old. Im mad into anything aircooled! Last summer I was working at Retro Camper (riggsi) and absolutely loved it! I desided for my first car to buy a 1970 Beetle. I am looking to lower it alot! And i was also interested in putting banded steelies!

Im just wondering whats the max size depth wheel I can go without having to modify the rear wings?
If anyone has any info at all it would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks :)

P.s. if anyone has any already and wanting to let them go i may be interested :)
 

Mikey

Moderator
Club Member
February 3, 2009
6,221
162
Dublin
Welcome to Eircooled Mark, don't be afraid to join the club in attendance of some shows throughout the summer.

I sold these set of steels to Phil he got them powdercoated black, banded and threw them on his bug.

Really nice job.

attachment.jpg
(Picture robbed, begged & borrowed from Stump).
 

Dirty1

Club Member
Club Member
November 22, 2006
2,780
7
Wicked-low
www.dirtyhabits.ie
Mikey, they weren't banded, they turned out to be 5.5j, he just painted them in the end.

@Mark, I've 9 or 10j wide 5's on the back of my 62 with a bit of stretch they clear the wings with no mods. Depends on the look your going for too as you'll adjust tyre size to get it to sit right an clear wings. I probably wouldn't go more than 9j. I get you a pic of the wheels.
 

trev

*****istrator
Admin
November 11, 2007
13,987
1,710
Co. Laois
how familiar are you with the ins and outs of wheels Mark? It's not just width you need to worry about, it's offset too. You can have a 10 inch wheel with very little (or even a negative) offset and it'll stick out of the wheel arch. If the same width wheel had very high offset it would be rubbing off the inner wing.

You need to measure up a standard wheel on the car (with the suspension compressed as it would be while driving, not hanging down when up on the jack) and then do your sums from there. Most people just go with a band on the outer side for the extra dish it gives. You might even find to really maximise the amount of tyre you can get on, the wheel will need to be banded both internally and externally, i.e. two bands on the same wheel.

Once you have the wheels organised you can play around with tyre sizes to see what clears and what doesn't. It all depends on how low you're going to go too, if at all.

while you're still at the research stage, play with this calculator here, you'll figure out the effects of width, offset, tyre heights/widths fairly quickly:

www.willtheyfit.com

and when you've landed on the actual wheel width and offset you need and are wondering how the tyre stretch might look, stick your details in here:

www.tyrestretch.com

best of luck with it and keep us posted to your progress :)
 
Last edited:

Mark_Iggy_Foy

Member
February 15, 2013
11
0
Co.Meath
IMG_0861.JPG Here she is! Took my a while to figure out how to upload pics so this will have to do haha :) Thanks for all the reply lads means a lot! Hopefully when we have it done it will be going to a lot of vw meets :D
 

loadsabuses

Club Member
Club Member
May 8, 2009
1,455
28
kerry
earlier cars have narrower rear axles so you can fit wider wheels to them .your car will have the longer axle shafts a tubes so that will restrict how wide you can go . unless you swap them if you can find a pair .
 

SteveR

Club Member
Club Member
April 28, 2009
1,972
8
Knocklyon, Dublin
I was looking at getting banded wheels done but didn't bother in the end. I went with 5.5j wheels on the back with baby moon hub caps. I don't have any close up photos but you can see them ok in these ones

 
Last edited:

trev

*****istrator
Admin
November 11, 2007
13,987
1,710
Co. Laois
There's another option, re-rimming. You use the centre from your beetle wheel in the hoop from another wider wheel.

IM000899.jpg