Making your own "wide-5" racing wheels

[roadhawg]

I've seen several people who are building short track race cars ask about "wide 5" wheels. There's several different sources for these, but if you don't want to order them and have a few tools and supplies, it's easy to make a basic set. Here's what you need:


Materials needed:
.010 sheet styrene
3/8" styrene tubing
.060 and .030 Plastruct hex rod
5/8 nylon washers from the hardware store
Deep open wheel backs from parts box



Tools needed:
Hobby knife
ruler
tweezers
Micro mark punch set




Start by finding some suitable open wheel backs from your parts box. An alternative would be to cut away the centers from a set of deep wheels, as shown.



Next, cut a 3/8" long piece of the styrene tubing. This will become your hub.



Cut a disc from the .010 styrene sheet slightly larger than the inside diameter of the wheel. As you can see, it doesn't have to be perfect. Glue the piece of tubing to the center of the disc, as shown.



Next, punch out some discs from the .010 sheet using the punch set. I have no idea what the sizes are, but the biggest holes on each side of the punch set look good to me. Glue the larger disc to the top of the hub, then glue the smaller disc on top of that in the center.





If you don't have a punch set, an alternative way would be to slice off pieces of appropriately sized styrene rod.

Next, slice off some pieces of the .030 hex rod and glue them evenly spaced around the top of the hub plate. For the front hubs, use 4. For the rear hubs, use 8.





This completes the hub assembly. Paint it the color of your choice, in this case aluminum. Now we move on to the rim itself.

[roadhawg]

Take the hardware store nylon washer and mark off where the lugs go. I use a template, as shown. The washers came from Ace Hardware and cost about 15 cents each.



You can print out this template to use if you want.



Now, cut 5 pieces of the .060 hex rod and glue on the washer as shown, to represent lug bolts. If you want to add more detail, you can drill a hole in the center of the bolts and add a stud...or use model railroad nut/bolt/washer castings.



Now, glue the open wheel back to the washer and paint the color of your choice, in this case, white. You can also paint the lugs steel. Add valve stems too if you like.



Now, center your completed hub assembly from the rear and glue in place.



And there you have it, a basic wide-5 wheel/hub assembly. Once you get the hang of it, this takes about 5 minutes per wheel and costs less that $1 for a set of 4.




Now go build some short track cars!

[Nacho Z]

Very nice tutorial Tommy. Thank you for taking the time to take all of the pictures and posting this.

[derbygeek116x]

Love it! Gunna have to try it!

[harron68]

You are a true craftsman! For those who luv to "D.I.Y." it is a clear, tutorial. Thanx!

[cruzcontrol]

Thanks a lot for the time & effort it took to do that. That's a fantastic How-To!

Gary.

[fireguy14]

That is an excellent idea and tutorial, Tommy!