Wheel advice

[Leftfield]

Apologies for a double post, hopefully this is the right place for this, could the mods please delete my original post in general chat? Thanks

Hello from a new owner.


Friend of a friend imported this from Germany three years ago , never registered it and has been sitting on his drive ever since.
I'm in the process of getting it MOTd and registered, really like the look of the prerunner lifted vans and think i'll go that route.
Tyres are shot,I have two sets of wheels left from a Vito I wrote off.

Alloys are 17 x 8,0JJ ET35
Steels are 16 x .5J ET 60
Advice neede from the online wisdom, I've read the wiki and getting confused, should I powdercoat the alloys ,use the steels with spacers/adaptors or sell them both and buy a set of 15s?
Preferred tyre is the yokohama geolander mainly because of the look, I intend using the GW springs next .
any thoughts?

Mick

[Titus A Duxass]

Have a read of these -
https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Wh ... ive_wheels
http://www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/t3-wh ... rum20.html

What's the PCD of those Merc wheels?

[Leftfield]

Thanks Titus

too much reading is what starting to confuse me, lol.
PCD is 5 x 112 both sets, i think if I use the steels I need 25mm adaptors , I cant find any reference to 17 x 8 so thought maybe the alloys would be too wide, I'll read on .

[silverbullet]

The easiest way is to jack up a front corner on solid level ground (under the wishbone, so the suspension is loaded) remove a std wheel, then sit the van back down to standard ride height and offer up one of your Vito wheels to see what the clearances are like.
Clash points are top wishbone and wheelarch lip, allow for 15mm min of tyre bulge / clearance at the arch.
8x17 up front is at the limit, I have 7x17 up front and its tight.
At the back you should be fine, I have 255/50 on 9x17" with no problems.
Ignore all the guff talked about std ET30-39, its not physically possible with wheels this far from the original spec. With 8" rims its going to be tight no matter what, the ET will be whatever it needs to be, probably around 15.
The trick is to set as much of the wheel inboard as you can, this whill reduce the chance of the tyre getting chunked by the front arch and also the tendency to "tramline".
Give me 10 and I will get some pics to show how close it all gets...

[silverbullet]

Hopefully these will show what you are up against:
7x17" with 215/50, around ET25 iirc but could be a shade less, you will note the state of the outer tyre shoulder, stiffer ARB required for petrol forecourts...

[Leftfield]

Excellent ! Thanks for your help.