• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Looking for four original sprite rims

Share this page

5

59diamond

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
I am looking for 4 1958 to 1960 original steel rims for my 59 bugeye. There was one thing wrong with the rims I have now. Now there are two things wrong.
First my present rims do not match. The front ones have 8 holes and the back ones have 12 holes. I thought I would pretty them up by putting Trim Rings on them which are sold by Victoria British for $50 bucks and $95 bucks by Moss.The ads on both Victoria British and Moss say fits 13 inch wheels, but nowhere does it say for rostile wheels only. Only in the new Moss printed cataloge does it say Rostile. I bought a set from Victoria British and in trying to put them on my rims I scratched all four rims so I had to get some silver paint and retouch them. What I would like to get are four steel rims that match that I can have sand blasted or what ever it takes to make them look original. I would keep driving with my present rims and then switch to the new ones when they are in good shape. So if anybody has some left over after switching to more modern rims I would be interested in buying them from you.
 
It's my understanding that there were 2 different wheels and that one or the other had problem's with cracking. Don't remember which but believe it had to do with the large hole's [2 of them] lining up with the hole's around the outside.
May want to check that out or, better yet, someone on this forum probably has more knowledge about it.

Kurt.
 
59diamond said:
I am looking for 4 1958 to 1960 original steel rims for my 59 bugeye.
Click to expand...

I have four that I am no longer using. They are the ones in the photo below. Make me an offer.

Dan

sprite1.jpg
 
59diamond said:
How about a hundred bucks plus shipping. I live in Southern California.
Click to expand...

Sure - that's a fair price. But would you prefer me to take some close up photos first?

Dan
 
If they look like the two in the picture I won't neeed any more photos. By the way what did you do with the hub caps? I might be interested in them also.
lei me know how we can do this deal and thanks for responding to my appeal.
 
I have the huncaps and lug nuts too if you need them. Any reasonable offer is fine.

I have the four cardboard boxes that the mags I bought came in and could ship them in those boxes, but they're not terribly strong. I'll try to figure out shipping costs tomorrow and let you know. I'll send you my cell phone number in a private message.

Dan
 
BTW: There were three types of BE wheels: First type uses rivets to hold the face of the wheel to the rim (not too strong and can leak air). Second type had the "cooling holes" aligned with holes for the brake adjust (cracks can develop between the brake adjust holes and the "cooling hole". Third type had the cooling holes offset from the brake adjust holes, reducing the chance of the cracking noted above. Cheers,
Scott
 
I am getting 4 matched rims and hub caps from Dan Lewis today. My plan is to spruce up the rims if need be and put white wall tires on my BE. I have ordered a set of Firestone 2 inch wide whitewalls from Motors Spot in Fallbrook, CA which carry Kroger tires. I will use the best 4 of the 8 hub caps that I will have. I will have them mounted and balanced by a place in Fallbrook that does a lot of work for Motors Spot. I will then bring them home and put them on my BE. i have seen very few BE"S with white walls and thought it would make my BE standout a little more. It is also cheaper than some of the other wheel alternatives I have researched such as wire wheels.
I will have my black walls for sale after the switchover and a few extra hub caps to dispose of. The black walls are steel belted radials, wide track 165 R13 82 W M/S. These tires were fairly new when I bought the BE and have lots of tread left on them. I put about three thousand miles on them since I have had the BE. The new whitewalls are 520-13.
 
Not mentioned here is the issue of bent rims. All of the above is good but if the rim has had a hard blow to the side no matter which variety they are cooked... I went through a pile of rims years ago before finding 5 true blues......
 
Back
Top