Sam, Wheel Vintiques makes a repro cop car style wheel - Summit carries them as well. The 15x7 4" backspace BBP version can be found here. Price is in the $80s each. I occasionally see them on ebay as well. They also repro the rallye wheels too.

I'll try and get a pic of the soft 8's on the car tomorrow.

Thanks PIerre, My head is spinning with information overload at this point. I am leaning towards the Crager Smoothie. Does anybody know if an 8" wheel with a stock offset will fit the rear of the late Dart? I want to put 8's on the rear, and 7's on the front in part to somewhat even out the front and rear track. If they made the 7" with 3.75 I could put that on the rear, and the 4.125 on the front and accomplish this. But alas, the 7x15 is available only in the 4.125.

With these 3.75 back space wheels, and 206 60 15's all around, the rears almost touch the fender on the outer edge. So there is room to go in, but not out. You can barely get your finger in between the tire and fender lip. I wish I had rolled the pinch weld up back when I restored the car.

I am also drawn to the smooth 8 in chrome.

Amend all that.
I see the 8" wheel has a deeper back space, which offsets the wheel in ward. So, no advantage there, track wise. However, I could put them all around. Are 8" wheels silly on a Dart? I have 205 tires, as stated. ARe these too small for an 8" wheel. So many choices! They do have the correct back space of 4.250. Anybody out there running 8" wheels on their 67 and later Darts?


Sam

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Might call Summit ....They were very helpful with a lot of my offset questions, ETC. Regards
MaX

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1966 barracuda 360
1964 signet conv. 170 turbo
Bonneville or Bust 2012

I ordered a set of smoothies from Jegs. Now the only concern is will they clear my disk brakes? I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Sam

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"When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it." - Pointy-haired Boss

1964 Valiant V200, 225/Pushbutton 904
BBD, CAI, HEI, LBP, AC, AM/FM/USB, EIEIO

That is a lot of work and $$ to save only a half-decent set of 15" tires. To each their own.

FYI, since my first "nice" set of 24/45-16 on 16X8's on the '64 Dart in 2002, I have gone by the strategy of picking a tire size FIRST (one with many hipo tires available), THEN picking the rim size and offset and weight. I gave up on 14s and 15s around 2002 due to the small number of good (often meaning good deals/cheap too) tires available. I build everything around the tire size/availability, then rim size/availability, then make sure brakes and everything else fit that.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Lou, I am sure that is good advice, but you know me, impulsive, and impetuous. The tires are actually brand new. I guess they can still be new and be only half decent. But, I really liked the way this car handles with the Mopar 15x7 cop ralleys. So if it gets back to that, I will be happy. And, these wheels were so cheap, relatively speaking that if I replace them in a couple of years I am OK with that. Hopefully other less impetuous forum members will be in a position to benefit from your good advice.

Sam

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Sam did the wheel break but the tire survive? If the impact was hard enough to ruin the wheel I'm guessing the tire's belts got damaged even though it won't immediately show.

The tire store said the tire was good. And they have things to sell. It looks as if the rim just picked something right next to the tire, and the tire went un touched. There is not a mark on the tire. To damage the rim the way this one was damaged, it had to come into direct contact with something very, very hard., and quite immovable. One of these days I will go back over that section of the road and see if I can figure out what it was. I am thinking maybe the edge of a manhole rim. This road has been under construction for years. I do think this tire will go on the back though.

Sam

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Sam,

Sounds good on the tire/wheel choices - just giving my hard(ish)-nosed opinion.

You might carefully check the brakes and other suspension parts if you destroyed the wheel without contacting the tire much. That road hazard could have hit something else important like a rotor.

Hmm, if the wheels were that cheap, I suppose it could be the wheel just shattered without even hitting anything? Looking forward to seeing your car with the smoothies... on the track at Hagerstown.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I got the new wheels on and the alignment done. It drives fine once again. The shock of hitting the broken curb piece had sent both cam bolts to their extreme adjustments. Nothing was bent or damaged, but that wheel had a lot of negative camber. But all is well now. They look good.

Sam

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Great! See you and the car in a week!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988