Make Your Own White Walls Experiment

[Guest shadetree77]

Had a little extra time on my hands today and decided to try a little experiment just for fun. If you missed it, there was a thread recently where I mentioned making your own wide white walls. I ran across a video on youtube where a guy made his own white walls and decided to try it out for myself. Here's a link to that video if you want to see it:

. Long story short....it works!! I used my angle grinder with a sanding disc set-up using 36 grit sanding discs. If you do it just like he says in the video, it turns out pretty good! I don't think I'd put them on a car(at least not without some more practice:D) but they make good display pieces for your garage. It might have turned out better if I had followed through with the last step on the video. He says to finish them up with 80 grit paper on a DA sander to smooth out the surface. I don't own a DA so I skipped it. The pictures show the tire I started with on the right and what I ended up with on the left. I also threw a 50's Plymouth hub cap I had laying around on there for laughs. I think I'll do this a few more times and see how good I can get it to look. Maybe even buy a cheap DA from Harbor Freight. Also, if you want to try this I would highly recommend a dust mask(I'm still picking rubber out of my nose:D). Be aware too that this makes a HUGE mess. Don't do it in your shop!!

Edited January 20, 2012 by shadetree77 (see edit history)

[Dandy Dave]

We have hashed this over before. When you do this, you are thinning the sidewall. Maybe not for the better. Dandy Dave!

[Marty Roth]

Back in 1979 when we got our '58 Bel-air it had a new set of narrow bias-ply whitewalls. We knew that the white was wider underneath the black wall.

There was a guy here in New Orleans who would grind off just enough black to expose the white as far as it would go, and then trim the excess to make the edges circular, clean, and smooth.

That served us for as long as the tires lasted, and we were able to afford, and justify the expense of a new set of Coker Wide-whites in the proper size - we did a lot of touring cross country in that car.

[60FlatTop]

The only thing that bothered me was the Plymouth hub cap! When I was a kid my grandfather owned a tire shop where I worked. That's the early '60's. What you are doing won't hurt. That rubber is there to keep water away from the fabric cords.

I was just thinking about doing that in my cellar and my wife screaming down the stairway. Of course, that opens the door to all those smell of burning rubber and screaming women jokes. I certainly wouldn't want to get something like that going.

Bernie

[RivNut]

In the mid 80's there used to be a couple of guys here in the Kansas City area who would go around to the used car dealers and put any width whitewall on any tire.

They would use a jack to raise the car enough to get the tire off the ground, then set it back down on a pair of rollers that were motorized. They'd spin the wheel and use cutter to cut about a 1/32" deep grove in the sidewall of the tire any width they'd want. With the wheel still spinning they'd then apply a rubberized white rubberized paint to the tire inside the excised area. The tires looked good sitting on the car, but I have no idea how well the white would wear and/or clean up. At the time, they were charging $5.00 / tire. It was a very quick operation. There was no need to remove the tire from the wheel or even remove the wheel cover.