Detachable Rims

[Colinwatt]

Are the lugs on detachable rims all the same size and position? Can any detachable rim fit any felloe on a wheel?
I have two detachable and two non-detachable on my 1915 tourer and want to change to all detachable with a spare rim and tyre.
Thanks
Colin Watt

[Humblej]

Demountable rims, lugs, and wheels are different from different manufacturers, some are interchangeable, some are not. Post a picture of what you have and we can go from there.

[Colinwatt]

Here is a picture.

[RajoRacer]

That particular rim is a Hayes - can't tell about the wheel a unless you remove the rim & tire. Hayes wheels have an indent that the rim "footed" lug nestles into. As Jeff mentioned - some are interchangeable & some are not. Hayes also has 2 styles of lugs - your type which has a bit of a straight side & the other is more curved - can't tell you why !

[jsaylor]

The front wheels on your '15 are most likely 30x3. So ,you will also need new 30x3 1/2 tires for the new demountables. My Hayes wheels have Hayes stamped into the lugs.

[Colinwatt]

Thanks for your answers. I now know that they are not all the same.

[CudaMan]

Hayes rims take a tapered seat rim nut, like this:

https://www.modeltford.com/item/2848.aspx

[Wayne Sheldon]

The big question is whether or not you want your "1915" to be like a real 1915. The demountable wheels like you show and others (like the Hayes) commented on by other posters were not available until 1919 and later. There were after-market demountable wheels made for model Ts by 1915 by companies like Firestone and Perlman. However all factory built model T Fords before 1919 had non-demountable wheels on them. USA built model Ts had non-demountable 30X3 tires in front, and 30 X 3 1/2 tires on the rear wheels from the factory. Canadian Fords had 30 X 3 1/2 tires front and rear. Why Ford had different sizes between the fronts and rears nobody knows for sure.
Many thousands of pre-1919 Fords had the non-demountable wheels changed out and replaced with later (1919 or later) factory demountable rim wheels after they became readily available. Thousands of antique automobile hobbyists have been using them for over a half century now. So if you choose to go that route, you will not be alone.

[Dan Hatch]

For wheels and rims, Ford Service Bulletins show what is what. And what fits what.
The Service Bulletins can be your best friend. The real Bulletins, not just the out takes.

[Allan]

Hayes branded rims have the foot on the lug as shown. For them to fit the wheel, there must be a cut out/depression in the felloe to accommodate that foot. Other lugged rims without the foot on the lug will fit any wheel.

Allan from down under.

[DickC]

Kelsey was a wheel/rim that was used mostly in Canada. The rims are so close they are sometimes mistaken for Hayes. The lug positions and valve hole on the wheel will not allow them to interchange. I bought a 24 that had beautiful wheels. It took me a few rides to figure out why it tended to loop down the road. The previous owner some how forced Hayes rims on Kelsey wheels. I found that this resulted in a non-concentric position on each wheel.

[Allan]

Dick, I feel a need to correct you on two points, with no intent to cause offense.

Hayes rims are easily identified. The lugs have a foot on them, as shown on the grey painted rim posted above. The lugs are also branded Hayes on the outside face. This means that the wheel is easily identified too, because the felloe needs a cut-out/relief to allow that foot to go on over the outside edge of the felloe.

All rims fitted to T wheels have the valve stem hole in the same place. If a rim to hand has a valve stem hole closer to a lug which may be slotted, it is a rim for a Chev or other car. You are correct that such a rim will necessarily have lugs in a different position. The four lugs will still be symmetrical. It is the valve stem hole that is shifted.

If your car had Hayes rims with footed lugs on rims without the reliefs, it is little wonder they did not fit well. The foot on the lug will not allow the rim to wedge onto the inside land on the felloe, and it would be free to wobble about wherever they would allow.

Because we had a set of 4.40 x 23" tyres on hand, we used the wider Chev rims on my son's 10 cwt lorry. To fit them we needed to shift the valve stem hole in the rims, and work a depression into the outside edge of the felloe to accommodate the lug foot.

And story against myself! When I restored my 1915 tourer way back in 1992, I fitted a set of Hayes wire wheels, which of course needed Hayes rims with footed lugs. No worries. I had them. When mounting the rims to my freshly painted wheels I discovered one of the back wheels had TWO valve stem holes in the felloe. At some time it had been the recipient of a Chev rim! I was not going to weld the extra hole shut, work the weld down and repaint it. It got a hand painted plastic plug instead, hardly noticeable.

Allan from down under.

[Will_Vanderburg]

I have a set of detachable lug rims on the front of my touring The lugs are slightly curved

[DickC]

Allen from down under-not to belabor the issue, but I bought a 25 coupe that had a good tire mounted on the spare which was mounted on the rear carrier. One tire was bad on the car and while I was doing fixit stuff on the car and before I bought tires I attempted to mount the spare. I could not do it any way I tried. Because of the valve hole, I could not match the lug holes. I looked at other rims and found that I had the exact situation mentioned above.(I was attempting to put a Kelsey rim on a Hayes wheel. It won't work.)

[Wayne Sheldon]

Kelsey and Hayes both made wheels and rims for cars other than Ford. Chevrolet gets mentioned most often, however, Overland and a dozen other automobile manufacturers also used very similar wheels and rims. The relative position between the valve stem and the attached lugs was the same for all the makers of model T clincher rims. If one has a rim or wheel that the valve stem and the hole for it do not line up with each other? One or the other was made for a car other than the model T. And there were a lot of them.
The loose lug wheels and rims are of course a different matter. They have other "doesn't fit" issues.

A long time ago, a member of our local model T club bought a somewhat nicely restored but not fully assembled model T. The wheels were beautiful, tires mounted on the rims, but not onto the wheels. When he had the car at home, and went to put the rims and tires onto the car, they didn't fit. The valve stems wouldn't line up into the wheels. So he carefully made notes showing the spacing and position he needed, and went to a local swap meet. There he bought a nice set of rims that had the valve stem holes in the right place. He cleaned them and painted them, then took the tires off the rims that came with the car and mounted the tires onto his new rims and put them on his car.
A short time later, with his new car on a club outing, another member needed to borrow a spare tire, and he happily offered his. It was then he found out, that his spare (which matched the rest of his wheels and rims) didn't fit the friend's model T!
It turned out, that his car he bought had the correct model T rims when he got it. However, the wheels upon close inspection were not originally from a Ford! Even the steel felloes were slightly different. The previous owner had apparently found a nice set of wheels and changed the hubs to Ford T hubs to use them. The reason the unfinished car was sitting on unfinished wheels was that the model T rims he tried to use didn't fit the non-Ford wheels. He had just happened to find a set of rims that matched his non-Ford wheels and did a lot of work to get the wrong result.

Every now and then, when such discussions come around? I think about that fellow and his car. I wonder if it is still out there or not. Maybe driving some poor soul crazy with its strange set of wheels. At the time, it was decided it really didn't hurt much, and it looked good. So it was easier to just use it that way and enjoy it. Just remember to not need to borrow or loan spare rims and tires because they just don't fit.

[Allan]

A friend here in Australia bought a nice mid twenties USA built Tudor. I noticed the spare tyre with the wrong valve stem position, and warned him not to let a certain rally driver pass him on the tour. This fellow was driving an Australian 1925 T tourer, the first of the T's to have 23" lugged rims. I told the tudor driver if he had a flat, he would need the spare on the tourer.

I was thanked for the advice, and he fitted a correct rim after the tour.

Allan from down under.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Another cute one from a club tour years ago.

We used to see many wheels with second valve stem holes in the felloe to accept rims from non-Fords. On a small club tour, one fellow had a flat and no spare. Another club member had a spare tire on a rim, but it turned out it was a non-Ford rim! So, everybody with demountable clinchers (my car at that time had 21 inch balloons on it) started checking their wheels for second valve stem holes. One was found. The Ford rim removed from it, the non-Ford spare put in its place with the second hole, and his rim and tire removed put onto the car with the flat on Ford rims.
At the monthly club meeting about a week later, everybody returned the rims and tires back to their rightful owners.

[Wayne Sheldon]

These stories need to told from time to time!

[Allan]

Wayne, when looking for felloes to build Hayes wire wheels, I discovered that Overland wheels had Hayes felloes, with the depression for the lug foot and the valve stem hole in the same place as a T.
Dick, in my experience a Kelsey lugged rim will bolt straight up to a Haues felloe. A Hayes rim will not bolt to a Kelsey wheel because there is no relief in the felloe for the lug foot.

Allan from down under.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Allan, I have had several good friends over the years with Overland automobiles. I have seen a fair number of Overland demountable clincher rims and wheels up close. Yes, the parts are very similar. I have often wondered over the years why they bothered with relocating the valve stem. It could have been simpler to have made them alike. Perhaps Ford contracts required the variation?

I always enjoy reading your contributions!