Need help with these wheels

[Glaser31]

I have a set of this wheel,would  have been used 19 " tire.Any know which car it belongs to ?

[Graham Man]

Could be 1930 Graham 612, 615, by set is that 2, 4 or 6 wheels?

[TAKerry]

Curiosity. Did the car manufacturers make their own wheels or sub them out, i.e. many different brands would have the same wheel but with a different centre cap/

[Walt G]

It is not Franklin of the 1930-33 era ( Airman) they were 7 lug. Wheels were sub contracted out to the best of my knowledge even on limited production cars due to the set up and machinery needed to make your own, it was cost effective to do so and their cars could be sold for a more modest price. Bodies for cars were made the same way - manufactured and left "in the white" ( ie in light  gray primer - not finish color painted) and shipped to the car companies to be mounted on the chassis. Franklin used Walker, Nash used Seaman, White used Rubay, Cadillac ( and to a great extent Isotta Fraschini) Fleetwood. Wood styling models of a fair size ( in the 1920s, later in the mid 1930s of plaster) were made and sent so the car companies and the body manufacturers could know the proportions and scale better. Few of these have survived ( later replaced with clay models) .

[padgett]

GM bought many from either Motor Wheel or Western Wheel.

[Graham Man]

Graham-Paige used Motor Wheel.   The small cars got 6 lugs, the big cars used 7 lug.

[wayne sheldon]

Even production giant Ford rarely made their own wheels all the way up until the introduction of Ford's welded wire wheels for 1926! Other than Ford's welded wire wheels and maybe later steel wheels, probably about ninety percent of all wheels on American cars before 1935 were likely produced by less than twenty wheel manufacturing companies. Note, I have never seen a list, so that is an off-the-head estimate/guess. General Motors in the 1920s bought Jaxon, and used Jaxon wheels on most of the cars they manufactured. But Jaxon even then was basically a subsidiary, and continued to make wheels for a few other car companies as well. Jaxon was somehow connected with Motor Wheel, another company that provided wheels to many automobile manufacturing companies (including Paige). I never have found a definitive explanation of the Motor Wheel/Jaxon connection, but it dated back to the late 1910s before GM acquired Jaxon. Motor Wheel and Jaxon were also somehow connected with Pearlman, another lesser-known company that manufactured wheels for many automobile producers as well as after-market wheels for model T Fords during the mid to late 1910s. Firestone is one of the best known companies producing wheels for probably at least a hundred different marques over twenty or more years. Firestone was also somehow connected with Pearlman, and made one of the best known and popular after-market demountable wheels for the model T Ford before Ford offered demountable wheels as a factory option. Budd was another well known company, manufacturing wheels for dozens of marques (including Dodge), as well as after-market wheels for anyone that wanted something better or different.

 

All that is off the top of my head. If someone wanted to spend the time, and do a major study of the subject? It could fill a sizeable book! And I cannot think of a single automobile manufacturer that made all their own wheels inhouse. Ford did make some of their own wooden spoke wheels for the model T. However, Ford manufactured less than ten percent of such wheels themselves. Ninety percent of the wooden spoke wheels for the model T were produced by three other companies, including Hayes.

[padgett]

Hayes -- Kelsey Hayes (1927).

[chistech]

My 32’ Olds wood wheels are made by Kelsey Hayes.

[TAKerry]

Great info, Now what is a demountable wheel?

[wayne sheldon]

7 hours ago, TAKerry said:

Great info, Now what is a demountable wheel?

 

In the model T world, the term is so commonly used that we tend to forget other people with later cars may not be familiar with it. Most early horseless carriages had non-demountable wheels before about 1910. The actual proper term is non-demountable 'rim' wheels. A demountable rim is one that can be simply unbolted from the wheel OR hub with the tire (inflated or not) so that a flat tire can be quickly exchanged with a ready spare on its own rim. Technically (by most usage over more than a century), a 'demountable' wheel is either the wheel that can be unbolted from the hub with the ready tire, or the wheel that remains on the hub with an outer rim that can be removed with its ready tire. Either way, the wheel is unbolted (demounted) from something.

It has been argued that 'demounted' is not a real word. It is not found in most dictionaries. However, the word has been in use since about 1910, and was commonly used for many years. 

Most cars had demountable wheels by 1915. Ford, with his model T, did not offer a factory option of demountable wheels until 1919, and continued with a non-demountable option through most of 1927.

About a half dozen different (although somehow connected even if only through patent licensing) companies manufactured and sold after-market demountable wheels for the model T Ford beginning about 1911, and continuing until about 1920 when Ford was offering the option. Model T people toss the words 'demountable' and 'non-demountable' around often to point out cars with improper wheels, optional after-market wheels, or later cars with the rare-today-but-common-in-the-1920s-still-optional non-demountable wheels.

 

Before a practical demountable rim was developed, quite a number of odd and some bizarre methods were used to hold the early tires onto wheels and still be able to repair flats on the road.

 

Does that help?

[Flivverking]

The term or phrase "Demountable wheel "and "demountable rim " etc. are bounced back and forth quit a bit here and are not the same thing.

[Bloo]

Using the words "rim" and "wheel" interchangeably has become common since the wheel and rim have been one piece for decades. It was not always so. In the early days, as has been mentioned, the wheels did not normally ever come off of the car. To do so would have meant taking the wheel bearing apart in front, or who knows what in the back, probably releasing a taper. You changed the tire on the car, and then had to inflate it with a tire pump, all at the side of the road.

 

The next popular thing was the demountable rim. In the teens and twenties, quite a few cars had it. The wheel still stays on the car, but the rim unbolts and comes off of the wheel. You can have a spare tire on a spare rim already mounted and inflated, and just jack it up and make the switch. Some trucks and mobile homes had a setup like this well into the 60s if not longer, although the term "demountable rim" had likely fallen into disuse.

 

The next popular thing was the removable wheel. Imagine a Model A Ford, or the wheels in the original post, or whatever you are driving to work today. You remove the entire wheel from the car, either with lug bolts, lug nuts, or a knockoff nut and a spline, leaving only the hub behind. Your spare tire is on another whole wheel. This wasn't new technology, it just became much more popular with the demise of wooden wheels.

 

The removable lock rings shown on the wheels in the original post do not enter into it. Lock rings like that can exist on demountable rims, as well as whole removable wheels.

 

On this picture of an EMF, you can clearly see a silver rim mounted on a yellow wheel, with black wedges and bolts.

 

.

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Bloo (see edit history)

[3makes]

Further dimensions such as center to center of stud or bolt holes, the ID's of the hub hole and hub cap hole certainly would be helpful. These are always different from one marque to another.

[TAKerry]

Perfect. Understand completely. 

[Graham Man]

1928 Graham-Paige

 

 

You unbolt the 4 rim clamps and slide the demountable rim off, great way to change a tire, extremely easy job

 

 

 

[Aussie_610]

On 2/23/2021 at 3:15 PM, Graham Man said:

1928 Graham-Paige

 

 

You unbolt the 4 rim clamps and slide the demountable rim off, great way to change a tire, extremely easy job

 

 

 

 

Interesting, early Wheels, but the latter pinned bumpers..

[Guest]

On 2/22/2021 at 8:15 PM, Graham Man said:

You unbolt the 4 rim clamps and slide the demountable rim off

Not quite.  You have to have the valve stem at the top and slide the bottom off and then lift the rim up and off.  If you could physically slide the rim off the wheel, you would snap the valve stem off.

[padgett]

Was the VW an inbetweener ?

 

[AHa]

You guys missed the detachable. The rim in the OP is called a detachable. There is a lock ring on the outside edge of the rim. If you remove this lock ring, the tire and tube would slide off the rim (or wheel). Still not a definitive answer on what the wheel belongs to but there you go.

[Paul Dobbin]

By the mid 1934, Firestone joined Motor Wheel and Kelsey Hayes in building wheels for 

Ford automobiles.  Some were notable for a bent spoke design and the number of steel spokes (36 to 40 spokes) varied by manufacturer.  Both 16" & !7" spoke wheels were made that way, (straight or bent spoke with straight as factory equipment).   It was common to use the 16" straight spoke wire wheels on Model A Fords after their introduction on the 1935 Fords with the 5.50X16 tires.