Quote:
Originally Posted by California Travieso
Since the 16" wheels bolt directly to the Model A hubs, why would anyone go to the trouble of modifying them to use the 19" centers? Was it just because the larger 16" centers didn't look right on a Model A?
David Serrano
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David, after the war-era period, it was a new day trying to "refill the pipeline", and there were way more used 16" tires available along with new 16" tires being manufactured than finding 19" or 21" tires.
The wrecking yards were full of Model-As with 19" wheels, so aftermarket manufacturers took those used 19" & 21" wheels and cut them down to install on rolled 16" rims. While the 19" cut-downs are fairly rare these days, it is the 21" wheels that are the difficult ones to find as I suspect there was not as much demand. The 19" would fit all years, so there was not the need to do both. I probably have collected enough to make 7 or 8 sets over the past 20 years, and I probably culled 4-5 sets just because of the run-out in them. These are very difficult for me to straighten, and ironically when you find a good wheel, it will be dead on concentric (i.e.: less than 0.030"-0.040") so I'm sure it was just a matter of how well the manufacturer's worker did at setting them up on a jig, and they likely shipped good ones and quasi-not-so-good ones and someone with a 15 y.o. used Model-A was thankful to get anything on a budget.