The Cal-look Lounge

It's a long time since I've had to think about this so I can't remember the ins and outs. I've got a stock US spec '67 landing in the UK in September. I've ordered a set of Flat 4 BRMs from Pierside for it but I can't decide what rear tyre size to go for, and I don't really want to be changing to short axles straight away if I can avoid it as I have gearbox/axle plans for later on.

What are people's thoughts? I think last time I used 205/65 15s but that was on a short axle car.

i have 215/65 tyre's on my car with the '67 axles.
i have fuchs wheels on my car,think the ET will have an effect on it as well if it rubs or not.

henk!!!

Never done it on a 67 axle length car but 185/70's can look great. I run these on my oval.
Lee

My buddy tried 215's with BRM's on his 67, didn't come close to fitting. He had to swap to short axles.

I was wondering if tires like 195/65/15 rear and 175/65/15 front could look good on a bug? They are pretty close in diameter as the classic 205/65/15 and 145/80/15 but are much easier to find and cheaper!

The tire isn't the problem. It's the wheels.  It will require short axles if you use the BRMs.

With the long axels and normal flat 4 brm you can go with 185. , with the 6.5 flat 4 brm you can go up to 215...i have tried and it worked

I ran 205/65 on F4 BRM with 67 axles about 15 years ago and they fit flush with fender. I would suggest 195/65 though. I ran 195/65 Goodyear Eagle GT on my car and aside from wear, was very happy with handling, especially in the wet. I recently went to a Pirelli and the wet handling is poor compared to Eagle GT's

Matt, I've got your old Flat Four BRMs on my car with stock '67 axles, and the same 205/65 Dunlops you had. One side fits pretty much perfectly but the other side sticks out by 10-15mm, probably due to the repro wings (a friend had the same issues on her car). Grip in the wet is marginal, so I'll probably go for a 195 but a better one when these need changing.

i run 185 70 van radials, they are great.

I'm not super worried about wet weather handling at the moment as the bottom of the car looks like it's been sand blasted to bare metal by the dessert, so it won't be going anywhere wet until the shell's been off :D

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/67Bug011.jpg)

I may well go a little narrower then and try for 195/65. I don't want to carry huge amounts of rubber especially, that blue '67 looked perfect on relatively skinny rears.

(http://cal-look.no/nostalgia/kirsten4.jpg)

I have to say I do love the look of the Wide O ovals though :D

Or maybe even the 185/70s that Leec suggested - anybody got a photo?

185x70

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v493/streetvw/Pauls67-1.jpg)

same car  :o same wheels but with I think 165 Goodyear's

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v493/streetvw/readers%20rides/bb23460d-f9ff-4878-9936-20d4452d05e3_zps4eeea37d.jpg)

I've always loved that car - I parked next to it one year at Action (I think), then it was in the next month's Volksworld.

^^^^ That's a great looking '67.  Nice stance and I dig the old-school merged quiet-pack mufflers.  They are tucked up and angled in that classic hot rod vw look.

I agree with this, the tyres are not the problem, however a 185 at the back and a 155 at the front looks perfect in cal look mode and still stops

Russell

I agree with Russell.  the 185/155 combination is great.  That's what I had when I assembled my car back in 1995 alas the are much harder to find here in the states.  Back then I was able to get Riken 185x70 tires for cheap money, but now I can't find them.  The 155s went the way of the dodo as well.  I am currently running 195x65 on the back of my '66 and they are nice.  I am not one that is into the biggest tire I can fit.  Oh well...

I am running 185/80 R15 Vredestein on widened stock rims (5,5 ET22)
I like the look, there is not much space left in the fender  :)
(http://imageshack.us/a/img827/4964/x0gy.jpg)
best regards
Steve

Steve67 can you post more pictures of your car? Looks cool 8)

thanks Jim, I will shoot some pics of how she looks now tomorrow...

Looking forward to the photos Steve.  Going to get some stock rims widened for my '58 and not sure whether to go 5 or 5 1/2 inch....my thinking is that 185/80 is ok on the 5 inch rim but 5 1/2 will allow me to go to 185/80 or 205/70.  Any thoughts?
Thanks
Richard

Whoops, re-read this... Ought to start my own thread not hijack this one with questions relating to a '58

I run wide oval under 67 and up brm and they are in the stock fender en long axels

here are a few pics,  the funny right exhaust pipe is due to the lambda sensor I am currently running to jet the carbs
As already mentioned the wheels in the back are 5,5 with 185/80. In the front I am running 4 inch wheels with 145/80 Firestones.
The engine is a 1385 ccm single port with dual Solex carburators and Engle W110 cam shaft. Next thing on my list is definitely a nice muffler(don't know what to choose so far) and T-bars...




Best regards
Steve
@ RichardinNZ; I agree with you regarding tires sizes and would go for the 5,5.

(http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6659/jclj.jpg)
(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1328/ebes.jpg)
(http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6975/bzxy.jpg)
(http://imageshack.us/a/img20/6606/img2644v.jpg)

Love your car!

Nice car, Steve. I think a single quiet pack would look great on your car. Keep the bumpers. They fit the overall look of your car very well.

Yes...nice car.  Must get those wider wheels and 185/80s for mine!
Richard

Steve, is your front beam narrowed ?

Here's food for thought.

Beetles are very sensitive to tire diameter, especially in the rear. Stock height or slightly taller almost always looks better than shorter.

The stock diameter (5.60-15) is 25.75". The diameter of the popular radial conversion (165R15) is 25.4 to 25.6 which looks a touch short if you're used to seeing Beetles in their native form.

The 205/65R15 is 25.5 inches tall which looks adequate.
The 185/70R15 tire is 25.2 which starts to look short. 
The 195/65R15 tire is a scanty 24.9 inches tall and looks quite short unless the car has been lowered quite a bit (it leaves a bigger gap between the tire and wheel arch). That's not very true to the Cal Look form though.

On the other hand...
The 215/65R15 is about 26 inches tall and fills the wells with the rearend set at about a degree negative camber (classic Cal Look stance).
The 185/80R15 is about 26.7 inches tall which looks quite good even if a little big.
The 185R15 is about 26.95 which sort of pushes the limits.

I have a friend who ran the 6.5" BRMs and 215/65s. The 6.5" wheels actually narrow the track width and should reduce fender-clearance issues; however, his tires still rubbed the fenders (which were OEM VW by the way). The short axles made the fit perfect.

The fit would've been perfect with long axles and 185/70 but they always looked a bit smallish to me. The 195/70R15 is a perfect size but a less-than-ideal tire. It's made for vans so it's heavy and has a relatively clunky rain-tire tread.

I have long/long axles, and 215/65 on 5,5" et30 rims fits nicely. It's lowered 5 and 5 clicks.

(http://www.raceinfo.no/temp/tn_image_125.jpg)

That appears to have four-lug brakes. Bear in mind that four-lug and five-lug brakes have different wheel-mounting offsets. The four-lug drums increase the distance between the wheel-mounting surfaces. Volkswagen maintained the same wheel track by making the four-lug wheel with more positive offset. Case in point, the '66 and '67 Beetle wheels have a 29mm positive offset whereas the '68 Beetle wheel has a 45mm offset yet the track width did not change from '67 to '68.

So you can't use a four-lug car for a reliable reference unless you account for the greater wheel-to-wheel mounting width.

I'm just saying it fits. If the OP's car have a narrower track on his car, 215 on a fairly high ET rim should not be a problem  ;D

out of curiousity, whats the length diff between a short axle and long axle?

i amrunning short now with stock drums BRMs, gonna change to read disc brakes and FF Fuchs 6", Wide Oval. deciding if i just use spacers or just change to long axles.

About 30mm (been a while since I've measured

My old 67 had 205/70 Firestone F560s on the back with Mahle baby burners and the original long axles if that is any help?

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/themabbo/67/new_engine005.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/themabbo/67/1.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/themabbo/67/6.jpg)

yes it is, about 15mm per side

@ Jim, lawrence, RichardinNZ : thanks for the nice comments...

According to the Without Guesswork books the '66 (short axle) rear track width is 1300mm/51.18" and the '67 (long axle) track width is 1350mm/53.46". So it's exactly 25mm or approximately one inch per side.


I don't know how much the disc brakes widen the track width but I know how much the Fuchs copies should. The real BRM and the 5.5" BRM reproductions have a 6.35 positive ET. The 5" BRMs (I think Flat Four) have a 5mm positive ET. From what I know the Flat Four Fuchs copies are 4.5 and 5.5. The 5.5 Fuchs copy has a 32mm positive ET. That's a 27mm more positive offset (all things being equal they'll narrow the track width by 27mm each side).


Well before you spend all that money understand what those tires mean. The early Cal Look movement really pushed radial tires--that was a big part of the scene if you will. Those wide-oval tires are bias construction which sort of go against the grain so to speak. I have every Hot VWs back to issue 2 in binders and I can tell you with great confidence that I've never seen such a tire on the back of a respectable Cal Look car. Low-profile bias-ply tires were usually on 'custom' Volkswagens that sat high on Cragars or Keystones. If a Cal Look car ran bias-ply tires it was on the drag strip.

Also it's not good practice to mix bias-ply tires and radials on the same car. Yeah, I know people do it but that doesn't make it right. A bias-ply tire doesn't achieve lateral traction as a radial tire and the last thing you want to do in a car known to oversteer is compromise the rear traction. Furthermore, and this is according to Michelin, it's marginally acceptable to use a bias-ply tire on the front and radials on the rear; however--again, according to Michelin--it's highly discouraged to use radials on the front and bias-ply tires on the rear. Bias-ply tires track on grooves and that makes the rear of the car steer itself. You can compensate for the self-steering properties when the front tires do it but it's difficult to control a car when the rear wheels steer themselves.

Note that I'm a huge fan of bias-ply tires. We have three old hot rods on them. They're not as bad as people make them out but you have to use them smartly. 

I cannot explain why there's a discrepancy in calculating axle length using the TRACK width listed in "Without Guesswork" and what I actually measured on my axle tubes, but there is a difference.

This is an early, "short" axle tube. My dial calipers are easer for me to read . . . They tell me that the distance from the backing plate mounting flange to the spring plate mounting flange measures 3.432"  (+/- .005")
[attachment=1]

This is a '67 "Long" axle tube. It measures 4.585".
[attachment=2]

According to my calculations, that's over 29mm!

FWIW . . . my '68 ghia runs 205/60x15 Dunlop on late Porsche Fuch 15x6 alloys. To get them to fit, I changed to "short axles" with 4-lug drums that have the hub snout turned down to fit the shorter axle splines. I had to use spacers (sorry but I do not know if the spacers are 3/8" or 10mm thick, but it's one or the other.) for the tire to clear the spring plates. After 30,000 miles, my tires have a very thin shiny stripe on the inside sidewalls, but they have not even worn through the paint on the spring plates yet and the lettering on the tires is still intact!
On a beetle, the same tire/wheel/brake/axle set-up with 13mm spacers should be fine.

HOWEVER, you are talking about a different tire and brake combo, so . . . . . as I point out above, the difference in the axles is 29.28mm, and my guess is that long axles will push your tires outside of your fenders.

Food for thought:

What year is that short axle end casting? Volkswagen went to wider brakes in early '58. It also modified the end castings as part of the modification. I know that the bearing/seal retainer from the oval years differs than the ones from the square-window years and I believe that the backing plate is thicker or thinner at its center mounting point.

From VW's By the Numbers leaflet:

"October 1, 1957, Chassis 1673351
Brakes/track: (...) The bearing flange is turned deeper and the cap is shortened at the collar."

The cap refers to the bearing/seal retainer that I referenced. Could the deeper machining on the bearing collar explain the 4mm discrepancy?

It's also entirely possible that the 4mm is within manufacturing tolerance. Cars today aren't very precise and you can bet they were sloppier half a century ago.

Good measurement by the way. Thanks for taking the time to do that.

I am pretty sure that the "short" axle I pictured is a 1961.

The easy way to tell between the early and later "short" tubes . . . early cars have shock absorber mounts that are perpendicular to the centerline of the chassis . . . on both the torsion housing and the axle tube. The later cars have upper and lower shock mounts that are angled something like 45 degrees.

Chris, if you could, please tell us the difference between '67 tubes/ bearing retainers and '68 axle tubes/bearing retainers. I think there is a difference, but I am not sure. I think that there might be a bearing retainer that is for something like '64 through '67 and a different retainer that works for '68 and later. They do not interchange . . . that is to say that "68 tubes must use "68/later caps and '67 tubes must use the '64-'67 caps, right? Getting them mixed-up will result in loose wheel bearings or "loose" backing plates depending on the combination (ie. late cap on '67 tube vs. early cap on '68 tube). Can you confirm?

That's the same way I measured. I stand correct :)

Well the car's here now and back in my garage. I haven't measured up but it looks to me like it may well have short axles already. I haven't had time to really look at it properly yet but it's got a 205/65 and 135 combo on stock rims and the tuck at the back is ridiculous. It actually sat on the inner rails on my trailer at the back.

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/imasdsfsdfdge.jpeg)

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/imsdfgsfdage.jpeg)

You don't measure for axle length. You look at the end casting to determine length. The difference is pretty obvious. Here's a photo. Long of course is at the top.

(http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1074399.jpg)


Now at least you have a baseline. Measure the distance between the tire sidewall and the fender lip. The stock '66 and '67 4 1/2" wheel has a 28mm offset. If you were to use a conventional 5.5 BRM with a 6.5mm offset then the tire tread would move 21.5mm toward the fender.

The sidewall shape will change ever so slightly because the 5.5" wheel is an inch wider. Each bead will move out exactly half an inch but because the tread is a fixed dimension the sidewall will move out only half of that amount on each side. So theoretically the sidewall will bulge approximately 1/4". In application it may bulge less.

So set the car at the intended height and measure the distance between the corner of the tread and the fender. That will give you a good idea of what wheel offset you can run.

FWIW, it looks to me as if you already have short axles. A 165 tire on a stock wheel sits way closer to the fender in a long-axle car. With short axles you really need to watch your backspace. Too much positive offset will make the tires rub the spring plates. If you're going to run an aftermarket wide-five wheel then you needn't concern yourself; they all have less positive offset than the stock wheel.

It's done. On closer inspection it has a '65 box, axles and rear brakes, so the rears fit perfectly. The fronts required a 2 inch narrowed beam to get back to stock with the CB performance disc/dropped spindle combo.

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/67.jpg)

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/672.jpg)

That's a really cool 67.
Any motor plans?
Lee

Twin quiet pack looks great.   :)

I like that Matt! Synchro looked good in Practical Classics last month too... ;)

Thanks everyone :)

I built a little 1641 on Saturday for it with an Engle 110, CB 044s with 40x35.5 valves, Scat 1.25 ratio rockers, 40 IDFs on CB offsets and a merged Thunderbird header. The bottom end is from a rebuilt but un run 1600 that I bought off a trike enthusiast when I realised on Thusday that I wanted to be at Cal Look Drag Day on Saturday :D Despite some very long days/nights I didn't manage it but it was a good laugh putting it all together. The photos above were taken at 4.30am on Sunday morning :D

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/photo1.jpg)

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/photo2.jpg)

Apologies for the slightly ropey phone camera photos and messy workshop.

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/photo3.jpg)

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/photo4.jpg)

And then from today:

(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i458/mrwibble93/photo5.jpg)

It's not very often you'll see a UK MOT certificate with as cool a vanity plate as that :D

It will probably be used to shake down the 78.4x94 IDA'd race motor when that's back from Daz Chandler's but at least I have something to drive it around with at the moment.

Neat! Just limit your blasts in the 5K RPM range until you counterweight that crank and balance everything. That's going to be tough discipline; that car will be fun to drive!

I'm probably going to stroke it a little and change the case for an ally one when the bank account has calmed down a little :D

A bit of an old thread, but I'd figure I'd share my setup on the recently stolen 68 :/

145s up front on a 5" narrowed beam (those 4 lug centerlines suck for offset) with a 3.5" rim
and 225/70/15 on the back with 5.5" rim with short axles.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/ezkiel/l_ce1f78a1c1bb547e244cc6f1b0af706e.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ezkiel/media/l_ce1f78a1c1bb547e244cc6f1b0af706e.jpg.html)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/ezkiel/493215841_Beeeg-L.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ezkiel/media/493215841_Beeeg-L.jpg.html)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/ezkiel/DSC00250.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ezkiel/media/DSC00250.jpg.html)