At one time the center hole of wheels was not made to "locate" on the
axle hub but instead the wheel got centered by the lugs and lug nuts.
At some point Ford started making the wheels and hubs such that the
hub centered the wheel and it no longer relied on the lugs to do the
centering. From what I've read, the cut over year for this on
Thunderbirds was 1964.

Does anyone know what the first year for this feature was for
Mustangs? I've been told that a 68 mustang still centers on the lugs,
not the hub.

In article <ekvlr2dlqt4gqo73iuv4da5g84ojvamlef (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, Ashton Crusher wrote:

Hard to say because ford made wheels that have different size center
holes depending on the brakes the car came with. If it had front disc
brakes the center holes are larger than with 4 wheel drum. At some point
ford probably stopped making the smaller center hole wheels. I found this
out when I was going to buy some '69 styled steel wheels for my mav. They
fit the drum brakes fine, but the rotors I have were too large in the
center. Since I might convert the car some day I didn't get them. I was
able to locate some maverick alloy rims and they have the larger center
hole.

On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:46:04 -0600, tetraethylleadREMOVETHIS (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
(Brent P) wrote:


That's the exact issue the prompted my question. A friend at work has
a mid sixties Mustang and he's put disks brakes on the front and was
saying how he has some wheels that will only fit the back. Then
started talking about how he was going to get some that were bigger
center holes for the back. Based on my old T-bird I told him he might
have a problem if the centers did not pilot on the hub.

In article <gsaor2dfgtj99e3j5nu51mrvuadco754bc (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, Ashton Crusher wrote:

There is no problem mounting the wheels for disc brakes on the drums in
the rear or even on 4 wheel drum cars as far as I know. Should be fine.
As far as I can tell, the alloy wheels used on '73 mustangs, same as for
mavericks, only came with a center hole for disc brakes and were
available on 4 wheel drum cars. Plus in all applications when the wheels
were on the rear they were ment to work there with the large hole.

Almost all cars, trucks and buses use the center hole for wheel centering.
One of many exceptions are the 8 and 9" Ford rear axles. Some Renault wheels
don't even have a center hole.

Al