GM Rally wheel set up

Does anyone know the details on this tire wheel tire combo?

Wagon

Aftermarket wheels in 18 inch or so. Not a fan, prefer rally wheels in 15 inch.

I would agree that 18" is getting into an area of what I don't personally like from an appearance point of view in most wheels, not only rally wheels.  On the more traditional, older, type body styles and wheel openings, keeping some decent amount of sidewalll looks best.  I prefer 60 series but 50 or 70 work for me also.

My wagon has aftermarket 17" aluminum Rally wheels with the low center cap and 235-60-17 tires.  The tires size was chosen as this is my summer daily and general hauler/tower for me and too many other people.  Good load capacity, narrow enough for wet or soft dirt traction, some very good touring tire availability so you can get excellent handling.  This is a stock height wagon, slightly higher in rear, semi retro sheep in wolf's clothing, car.  Pretty different than many other big wagons I have seen, and that is kind of the point of doing it, plus it let me put together the various things in different eras that I liked.

Booster

Are yours a 7 inch wheel? What brand are they? Backspacing set up? My dad put rally wheels on every GM car he owned.... I want to keep the tradition going on the wagon.

Thanks for the pics. It helps with figuring out what might be a good set up.

They are 7" in 17" diameter, zero offset.  They also have enough load capacity to match the OEM wheels and the tires. The center caps we used are also from Vision and in chrome plated steel so they don't fall off like the plastic ones do sometimes. The plastic tall ones are on the wheels in the link, and ours are the low ones.

Vision Rally wheels

Wow! So those are aluminum wheels?

Quick66ss wrote:

Wow! So those are aluminum wheels?

Yes they are, and when I got mine about 3 years ago they were really inexpensive, but very nice quality. I think I paid $121 for each wheel and about $20 per center cap. I found good pricing on the wheels and caps online and also for the tires I wanted, then took those prices to Discount Tire and they matched them locally.

Looks great.

Is tire clearance OK with the zero offset on this 7x17 set up? Any rubbing? I believe the stock wheel 7x15 with +8 offset.

How do you think they would work for towing? (light duty Airstream Bambi 3000 pounds)

swell ride charlie wrote:

Looks great.

Is tire clearance OK with the zero offset on this 7x17 set up? Any rubbing? I believe the stock wheel 7x15 with +8 offset.

How do you think they would work for towing? (light duty Airstream Bambi 3000 pounds)

What size tires on the 17 x.7 rims? The stock offset is +6.

We don't have anywhere near rubbing with lots of room around the tires and no lip rolling needed.

I chose to use 235-60-17 as they have the wheelwell fill appearance from the side as they are very near stock diameter and I am not a big fan of the lots of wheel with skinny sidewall look. Plus, this car is a driver in Minnesota so it will see rain, possibly a bit of snow or frost on the road although it hopefully won't, and getting really wide can have some hydro/sippery type issues sometimes.

Load capacity is plenty good for towing 3K and I have done nearly that much a few times with the utility trailer, but not for long distances. It pulled and stayed in place nicely with 30# of air in the rear bags over stock springs and Bilstein shocks.

Thanks. I have a new 96 RMW coming to replace my 94 RMW. I came to like the look of the 94 with its black 15x7 wheels and chrome rings and Chevy caps - a strong hint of hot rod look. Would like a similar look on the new 96. Maybe the 17s would work. We end up on rough gravel roads a bunch - and mountain snow so I been running some beefy 225 70 R15s that are deep tread and snow rated. They really improved the handling when towing. I think the tall sidewalls help with rough road too. So I'm a little hesitant to go to a larger wheel with smaller side wall - just for rough road handling. Any opinions on that out there?

The tall sidewall will give you a better ride. Good shocks help too.

It is getting very hard to find good tires in 15" anymore, or even 16".

You can get some LT rated tires in load range D and E in size 225-65-17 that might satisfy the rough road characteristics you desire.  They are taller than stock by about an inch, I think, but should clear everything hopefully.

You can even get Geolanders and KO2s in that size and they certainly should handle it.

You can get 235/75/15 truck tires. They are 29 inch and work great on the wagons.