First things first, the donor.
RS264: 17x7 ET45 5x114.3
RS265: 17x8 ET50 5x114.3.
Perfect specs for achieving big dish with big width.
Some preliminary widened specs were drawn up.
It goes without saying that I won't be revealing the final specs until the project is finished :)
Anyway, upon receiving the wheels I came upon so undesirable features...
It's becoming all too common to see these 20+ year old wheels all battered and shit. A shame really. I was really hoping all the barrels could be reused (lips I didn't really care, being replaced anyway). The RS264 used the smaller, damaged 6" barrels (yes, both were damaged).
The RS265 had good 7" barrels, though it was easy to see that they had been repaired previously. The barrel sprayed black seems to have been rerolled and there were signs of some welding work (buckle and crack repair) but the work seems top notch (similar to what I've encountered with Peter @ OZWheels @ Minchinbury, now unfortunately closed). The other barrel seems to have had a consistent, circumferential welding bead along where the hump of the wheel would normally be situated. The barrel could have possibly buckled inwards (as opposed to where it occurs commonly on the outside edge or rim profile), i.e. right where the hump is, hence the need to weld extra metal to maintain that part of the wheel. Whatever the reasons, the RS265s look like they've been repaired well, and there were no visual buckles or cracks.
New lips, bolts/nuts and centrecaps have been ordered. Hopefully they'll arrive in time for an upcoming event, so this project will need to be built on a pretty rushed timeline.
As such, I'll be replacing the damaged 6" barrels with some of my own stashed-away barrels. I'm not 100% sure, but I think they're 6.5" barrels, meaning the final specs will be slightly different to what I had calculated above. If indeed they're 6.5" barrels, then the new possibilities will be:
0.5" lips -- 6" barrels -- 17x7 ET45
0.5" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x7.5 ET51
2.5" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x9.5 ET26
3.0" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x10 ET19
3.5" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x10.5 ET13
4.0" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x11 ET6
They're still being dismantled currently, but we'll be cleaning them up and getting them ready so we can just bang them straight on when they arrive.