Thread: Stude M5 build

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Another fun little aluminum project. I had gotten rid of the ugly plastic multi tool turn signal stalk but it left just a plain steel rod. I made my own billet knob for it. Shaped it by turning it against my 12 inch sanding wheel.

That is very clever regarding the tools you used.
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Sweet! And that's how you make it your own! More than one way to skin that cat.

Continuing the billet theme, I made a pull knob for the glove box.

Nicely Done!

Hey. I think you're getting carried away now! Hee Hee Hee.. jk, good job.

I know, I was kind of looking for things I could do inside my little garage where the swamp cooler makes it kind of doable. The truck is in another area that the swamper doesn't help much so it's pretty much unbearable in there right now...110 today.
I've had the truck out a couple times in the heat and was impressed that the cooling system seems to handle it with the AC going, so that's plus. My v8 Miata can't handle it over 100 with AC going.

Not real exciting stuff but I have been tinkering on it. I used some Casweld PM to solder a crack in my pot metal hood ornament, it worked OK for that. I tried to fill all the pock holes that are everywhere but I just couldn't get it to work so gave up on that. I repaired the hood trim strip, it had an ugly hole it, it was longer than I needed with the ornament so I cut off a good section and welded it where the hole used to be. It turned out all right, you would have to be looking for the weld joint to find it.

My hood rod mount was long gone so I made a stainless mount for that, so I don't have to use my piece of wood to hold the hood up anymore LOL.

Nice work and giving me Ideas!!!

I'm thinking about getting my wheels and tires but not sure what overall diameter tire I should get. The Explorer tires I have on there now are 16x7.5 and 28.5 inches tall, they look way to tall to me especially in the front. Anyone have recommendation on overall tire size?
I got a cheap tool for checking clearance and backspacing from Amazon a while back, its actually pretty decent for 35 bucks
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z4Z9MDT...fed_asin_title

This is always more of a personal viewpoint. I think what is on there now is fine. Not a big fan of the wheels but, I think the tire height is good. It's a tall cab - it's gonna look odd with rubber band tires imho! 8-)

I definitely don't want a rubber band look. It's hard to tell in my pick but they look big, in fact the rear has been lightly rubbing the front edge of the fender and the front just looks too big. I want to go with steel wheels, been looking at 16x8 front and 17x9 back with a 26 inch wheel. I need a positive offset so that limits choices quite a bit. Looking at 255 45 or 50 for the back and 225 50 for the front. US wheel has a 19mm offset that I think will work.

".........This is always more of a personal viewpoint. I think what is on there now is fine......."

I couldn't agree more, especially about it being a personal view point. Tires and wheels are an expensive especially if you get them on and then decide they don"t look quite right. To me at a glance I think tire size looks good, if I were to change anything it would probably be to to with a shorter front tire, but then I'd want to raise the front end a bit to keep the current ride height (of course then you run into the re-aligning it etc).

I know figuring out the tire sizing on the 37 Dodge I built was a real PIA. I keep a pile of rollers in the back shed and for that build I ended up mounting 3 different pairs (I only needed to see how they looked on one side) before I finally ended up with something I was happy with. Even then I ended up not being real happy with the rears.....fortunately I was able to trade the rear tires from the 57 Plymouth and 37 Dodge around and ended being happy with both vehicles but what a PIA.


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I personally agree that those tires look too tall. I think you should go a little shorter in the back, and make the fronts a little shorter than the back.

Personally, for an old car I like to try to find tires with a high aspect ratio, like a 70 or 80 series. That looks more period correct to me.

I find this online tire size calculator helpful, to help visualize what size tire difference I want to see from front to rear.



https://tiresize.com/calculator/

Originally Posted by Driver50x

I personally agree that those tires look too tall. I think you should go a little shorter in the back, and make the fronts a little shorter than the back.

Personally, for an old car I like to try to find tires with a high aspect ratio, like a 70 or 80 series. That looks more period correct to me.

I find this online tire size calculator helpful, to help visualize what size tire difference I want to see from front to rear.



https://tiresize.com/calculator/

Thanks, I like the calculator!