Will these wheels fit my 1972 Chevy Impala?
How to make sure your new wheels will fit your old school ride without any problems. This must read post is for you that are doing oversize wheels or trying to give your ride that nice modern street look.
- 21 Apr2018
- admin
;WILL THESE HOT OVERSIZE STYLE WHEELS FIT MY OLD SCHOOL RIDE?
It’s been a long time since you are trying to revamp the look on that old school ride that you have in the storage, or maybe you just bought one and did not like the way it looks, and the first thing that came to mind was to try some nice chrome rims.
Well, whichever the case may be, we have some important tips for you to consider before going out there and spent your money on something that will not work on your car.
Lots of folks overlook the hub size measurements when searching for new rims. Although you got the right bolt pattern and the right offset for the car, your new wheels center-bore must be compatible with the vehicle.
Of course, we are talking about old school rides, and the purpose of this post is to help folks in the market for new wheels and have no clue about this type of information. We’ve been selling wheels for quite a few years, and we have helped many customers who faced this type of fitment problem.
Below are some steps for you:
THE VERY FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO:
Before shopping for wheels anywhere, especially on eBay or Amazon, and the reason I say these 2 big names (eBay & Amazon) it’s because there is not one specialist to talk to or give technical information, and most of the time, the person selling wheels on those places they are not wheel professionals and have no clue about fitment.
So, if you have an old school ride before you shop for new rims, take the time to remove one wheel from the front of your car and another wheel from the rear. In many cases, the hub in front is completely different from the one in the rear.
THIS IS THE REAR HUB OF A 1972 CHEVY IMPALA
THIS IS THE FRONT HUB OF THE SAME 1972 CHEVY IMPALA
As you may notice, the same vehicle has to completely different type of center hub, which does not work on street-look wheels. The front center hub of this 1972 Chevy Impala is almost 3” inches long. The only type of wheel that would fit would be the truck-style wheels or the old-school muscle look style rims with the humongous center cap.
If you intend to have oversize wheels with the street look such as the ones we will show in the pictures below, you should definitely bring to your wheel dealer’s attention the fact that your front wheel hub is almost 3” inches long with very short studs, in this case for 1972 Impala.
We strongly recommend you do the same for the old school car that you have: old Cadillacs, Delta 88s, among others. Unfortunately, the industry guides for the aftermarket wheels only specify bolt patterns and offsets and sometimes the hub diameter but not the hub length or brake caliper’s size. So, it’s your job to know that the wheel specialist follows a guide, and if they did not have an experience with a vehicle like yours in the past, you would face disappointment for sure.
IF YOU HAVE ALREADY BOUGHT YOUR WHEELS AND YOU ARE FACING THIS EXACT SAME ISSUE…
You’ll need to buy custom-built adapters to space out wheels enough to clear that big 3” grease cap hub.
We know many wheels installers’ shops such as a discount tire, tire kingdom, and others will tell you that it’s not safe, your life will be in danger, wheels will fall off and bla, bla, bla. That’s their policy, and most of the time, those shops only deal with stock fitment parts. Our recommendation is for you to look for an Aftermarket Wheel Shop and not a tire shop.
Take the measurements of the front and back rear hub, the length of the hub of the car, and have your Machine shop build custom hub-centric adapters, and you will never have any problems. Make sure to know the center bore of the wheels as well.
See photos below:
The measurements in this picture are not for the 1972 Impala. It's just an example.
This is how to measure the wheel center hub. Give this measurement to your machine shop, which is building your adapter parts.
After giving your measurements to the machine shop of choice, they will build specific adapters for your vehicle. The back of the adapters will have the correct center bore to match your vehicle's specs, and the front of the adapter will have the right lip diameter to fit just perfectly into the center bore of the wheel you have purchased. If you have built the adapter with the precise measurements taken from your car hub and wheel, you now have a hub-centric adapter, and no matter what those tire shops that only deals with stock parts say, your wheels will not fall off from your car; you’ll not have any problems whatsoever.
It’s a shame how tire shops across the nation give customers wrong advice and information so they can sell their OEM straight fit parts, so they don’t have to do a little extra work.
