I realized I took some pics of the EBay wires. Thought I'd share...
They look pretty decent at a distance.
Here is the important area to look for with used wires, though. These wheels were advertised as "restored by sand blasting and re-painting. Excellent condition". If you look deepest into the center hole, you see how the splines are "beefier" looking. This is how they looked completely across the spline when the wheels were brand new. The hub splines only contact the out portion. Every time the care accelerates the splines hit on one side. Slow with the brakes, and they hit on the other. AFter many thousand miles, the splines wear to be what you see in the pic.
When new, the top of each spline has a little flat. As the slope of the spline wears, the flat gets smaller, until there is ultimately a sharp edge at the top. Once the wheel reaches the "sharp edge" portion of it's life cycle, then it starts to wear smaller, since there is no more flat to wear into. By this stage the hub and wheel make a clicking sound every time you go from accelerate to brake, since there is play between them. Eventually the splines just shear off and the wheel turns independent of the hub, which is never good!
So, as you can see, the splines on this wheel has pretty much reached the sharp edge portion of it's life. It will last a while, but not a whole lot longer. And, the rough edges on these splines show that there was a good amount of corrosion on the splines before my EBay vendor blasted them. These are not very good wheels, although they look good with their fresh paint on the outside.
Here was an issue with one of the 5 wheels. This is where one of the spokes enters the hub. It does not sit flat, indicating the spoke is bent. Of interest, the spoke doesn't look bent on the outside, but this mis-align shows it is. I actually tried to replace this spoke...but it won't turn. Or, rather, the entire spoke turns along with the nut. About that time I decided to give up and order new wheels!?!
Finally, here is a bend in the edge of the rim. I will give the Ebay vendor the benefit of the doubt...the chip likely indicates this was done by UPS in shipping. Bends like this can sometimes be hammered out without a problem...but it will mess up the paint doing it.
I found this interesting...these holes were on 3 of the 5 wheels. In each case they were 180 degrees opposite the valve stem hole. I can't say for sure, but I suspect some PO drilled these to lock the wheels onto the rims...which started in drag racing many moons ago. If you run very low air pressure in order to get more rubber contact on the road, then sometimes the wheel can spin on the rim. You counter this by drilling a hole like this and putting a sheet metal screw through into the tire bead, to lock it in place. I don't know if that is the purpose of the odd holes, but it is a possibility.
So now I have my tires and await the new rims from the UK. I did mount the spare 145/80r15 and check it in the spare compartment. It fits with about 5 inches total on the sides and enough to put my hand on top of it when it's in the spare well. I took pics, but haven't uploaded them yet. Will do for next week, though.