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Newer wheel, older dog dish HACK

H

HotRod777

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Location
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I’ve seen a few people bring this up lately and felt I could contribute what I have done many times over a half dozen cars or so.
The the 67/68 changeover from the large register to the small register hubcaps have always been a problem for us early B-Body guys trying to run 15” and/or wider rims then the stock and getting hard to find early 14’s.
I buy the new 15x(whatever width)
I want and use junky 9” caps (Like $5 a piece swap meet caps) as donors
for the ring. The picture shows the discarded piece of the 9” cap and the other picture shows the inner ring glued into the bigger dog dish. I use PL construction adhesive (this stuff dries like rock hard marble) and I have never lost a hubcap. I PL the whole bottom edge that sits inside the bigger cap as well as bridge the gap around the edges. I use a death wheel the cut the ring off the 9” cap and the use a bench grinder the smooth and even-up the ring. The key is the have the 9” ring edge sit about 1/8” lower then the bigger caps edge. This allows the bigger caps the meet the wheel center as it drops away from the smaller cap tabs.
Please do this at you own risk.
I have nice cars but not concourse cars... would I do this with a $800 set of NOS max wedge caps? No.
But it’s an option for us driver/cruiser guys.

4F41DD60-6609-41ED-972E-E0CA7FA9C1B7.jpeg 45BF2D47-E8C8-49BB-9A1D-1D5DE4933B97.jpeg
 
HotRod777 said:
I’ve seen a few people bring this up lately and felt I could contribute what I have done many times over a half dozen cars or so.
The the 67/68 changeover from the large register to the small register hubcaps have always been a problem for us early B-Body guys trying to run 15” and/or wider rims then the stock and getting hard to find early 14’s.
I buy the new 15x(whatever width)
I want and use junky 9” caps (Like $5 a piece swap meet caps) as donors
for the ring. The picture shows the discarded piece of the 9” cap and the other picture shows the inner ring glued into the bigger dog dish. I use PL construction adhesive (this stuff dries like rock hard marble) and I have never lost a hubcap. I PL the whole bottom edge that sits inside the bigger cap as well as bridge the gap around the edges. I use a death wheel the cut the ring off the 9” cap and the use a bench grinder the smooth and even-up the ring. The key is the have the 9” ring edge sit about 1/8” lower then the bigger caps edge. This allows the bigger caps the meet the wheel center as it drops away from the smaller cap tabs.
Please do this at you own risk.
I have nice cars but not concourse cars... would I do this with a $800 set of NOS max wedge caps? No.
But it’s an option for us driver/cruiser guys.
Very nice! Here's my hubcap hack. Took 14" hubcaps and put them on 16"x 8" wide cragar steel rims. It wasn't as easy as your hack. And did this cause I liked the look of the hubcaps, but want bigger and wider tires.
View attachment 996929 View attachment 996930
Click to expand...
20161026_185435.jpg
 
diesel_lv said:
I am not sure what you are showing here, a 14" hubcap on a 15" wheel? If so, did you modify something? I have my original 14" hubcaps for my '67 Coronet n would love to run them sometimes. I currently have 15x8 police wheel repops.
Click to expand...

I fit a ( 14" ) hubcap onto a ( 16" ) steel wheel..
Look carefully at the picture. You can see black painted steel beyond the hubcap. Plus the hubcap is inset below the sidewall of the tire and cannot get any curb rash..
 
Last edited:
HotRod777 said:
I’ve seen a few people bring this up lately and felt I could contribute what I have done many times over a half dozen cars or so.
The the 67/68 changeover from the large register to the small register hubcaps have always been a problem for us early B-Body guys trying to run 15” and/or wider rims then the stock and getting hard to find early 14’s.
I buy the new 15x(whatever width)
I want and use junky 9” caps (Like $5 a piece swap meet caps) as donors
for the ring. The picture shows the discarded piece of the 9” cap and the other picture shows the inner ring glued into the bigger dog dish. I use PL construction adhesive (this stuff dries like rock hard marble) and I have never lost a hubcap. I PL the whole bottom edge that sits inside the bigger cap as well as bridge the gap around the edges. I use a death wheel the cut the ring off the 9” cap and the use a bench grinder the smooth and even-up the ring. The key is the have the 9” ring edge sit about 1/8” lower then the bigger caps edge. This allows the bigger caps the meet the wheel center as it drops away from the smaller cap tabs.
Please do this at you own risk.
I have nice cars but not concourse cars... would I do this with a $800 set of NOS max wedge caps? No.
But it’s an option for us driver/cruiser guys.

View attachment 996929 View attachment 996930
Click to expand...
I would be willing to try this as a economic way of solving a problem many of us have. Curious if you had any balance issues after installing the modified caps.
What method did you use to cut the donor caps apart? More pics?
 
HotRod777 said:
I’ve seen a few people bring this up lately and felt I could contribute what I have done many times over a half dozen cars or so.
The the 67/68 changeover from the large register to the small register hubcaps have always been a problem for us early B-Body guys trying to run 15” and/or wider rims then the stock and getting hard to find early 14’s.
I buy the new 15x(whatever width)
I want and use junky 9” caps (Like $5 a piece swap meet caps) as donors
for the ring. The picture shows the discarded piece of the 9” cap and the other picture shows the inner ring glued into the bigger dog dish. I use PL construction adhesive (this stuff dries like rock hard marble) and I have never lost a hubcap. I PL the whole bottom edge that sits inside the bigger cap as well as bridge the gap around the edges. I use a death wheel the cut the ring off the 9” cap and the use a bench grinder the smooth and even-up the ring. The key is the have the 9” ring edge sit about 1/8” lower then the bigger caps edge. This allows the bigger caps the meet the wheel center as it drops away from the smaller cap tabs.
Please do this at you own risk.
I have nice cars but not concourse cars... would I do this with a $800 set of NOS max wedge caps? No.
But it’s an option for us driver/cruiser guys.

View attachment 996929 View attachment 996930
Click to expand...
I just completed the dog dish 9 inch, inside the older 10 inch poverty cap conversion on my 65 Bel. I used the Plymouth cop caps with the holes as donors. A good buddy of mine thought up a simple jig, to keep the inner mounting cap down inside the larger the required 1/8 inch to allow the larger cap to fit up against the wheel as it falls away from the register. I used PL3X as my adhesive, which took 3 days to completely cure. They popped on real nice and tight, took the car out on the road and cruised up 0ver 70 mph with no balance issues what so ever. For me, this was a Very inexpensive way to solve a very common problem for the correct look for the older B Bodies, without spending about a Thousand Dollars for wheels, or stretched centers in new hoops I'm all in for just under $100, and the time for fabrication.
This is strictly what I did, and my opinion.
 
Yes .... Had some fuel pump concerns , just completed them last week, only driven it twice,and only briefly at that. Got a few small bugs to iron out. Getting photos together to be able to go over the build soon.
 
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