Will these wheels work?

I came across a set of BBS wheels for a really decent price. I have been holding out for a set of Impala SS wheels. But I thought these would look really good if I could get them to bolt up.

They are 17X8 with 5 on 120mm (BMW) bolt pattern.

Should I try to make these work? (Not quite sure how)

Or should I just hold out for a set of Impala SS wheels.

Douglas.

Anything can work with adapters and money. What's the wheel offset?

The offset is 20mm.

No, they won't and no you shouldn't.

On a related note, I may be interested in them.

Hold out for the SS wheels for a much stronger and safer package.

wrong bolt pattern, you need 127mm

buickestate wrote:

wrong bolt pattern, you need 127mm

Nice catch Pat,man are you sharp today!

Great minds think alike... I was just looking at a set of those here in Syracuse. 17x8? The ones I was looking at are 16x8.

Forget the Impala wheels. It's getting harder and harder to find those in good shape, and for the price you'd pay, you could get into these for about the same. These with Chevy centers would look great on a Caprice.

You'd need some custom adapters or have the wheels redrilled. Given that the offset is so small, probably redrill the wheels for the same or less than the cost of custom adapters. Then again, I'm just guessing here; hopefully JaySS will chime in.

One more thing - looks like these wheels come in several flavors. The ones off late 1990s 7-series BMWs surely can carry the weight of our cars. The set I was looking at was this:



CL ad:
http://syracuse.craigslist.org/pts/3785740021.html

Joel,
Thanks for the opinion. The 7 series wheels you point out are nice looking wheels and that is not a bad deal for those wheels in that level of condition. I will have to look into having them machined for a different bolt pattern. With the current backspacing I don't think I can use adapters.

As stated I am looking for options and opinions. Pro or con. I am still wondering if they will look good on the car. Or at least look as good as a set of Impala SS wheels.

Bill,
I will let you know if I decide to part with them.

Jim,
I believe these wheels were standard on the BMW 528it sport touring wagon at approximately 3800 lbs and also optional on the 740iL and that car weighs in at a bit over 4200 lbs, and the 750 which is over 4500 lbs. I don't see how they would be unsafe as the Roadmaster is 4600 lbs give or take.

Pat,
Yes the bolt pattern is incorrect. I was just speculating what my mounting options may be. (Modifying or some form of adapter) also if they would look good or bad.

I like them. I think they'd look decent on a LOWERED B body.

I already have a set of those BBS wheels mounted on my B body wagon and yes they do look great!Mine came with the correct 5x5 bolt pattern.

Those would be sweet if they did.

So, after listening (or not listening as the case may be) I decided to pull the trigger on these BBS wheels. A deal was struck and soon after I had a car full of BMW Style 5 wheels.



I got 9 wheels in total. All in various states of neglect as they had been used in the Winter. Oh well, if they were any better shape I likely couldn’t have afforded them.

So now the question is how to mount them on the wagon. Different backspacing / weird bolt pattern etc.. So I started a dialog with Jason (JaySS) and he said you better bring them here so we can get a closer look at them.

So I left the wheels in the car, packed my supplies and headed down to Mass for a bit of measuring and discussion.

The BBS wheels have 5.5" of backspacing. With a 1 inch adapter they would have about 4 inches of front spacing. Really close to the Impala 3-15/16" give or take.

However this would make them quite tight on the rear with that arrangement (more tire bulge as the wheel is slightly narrower). And the wheels would still have to be relieved on the backside to clear the B-Body lug studs (as they are about 1.25” long)

After bantering about several ideas, he suggested we may want to look at modifying them instead of using adapters. Since they have to go into the milling machine anyway, why not re-drill all wheels to the 5 on 5" bolt pattern and clearance the centers so they will bolt up directly.

The discussion ended up with us deciding to go ahead and modify the wheels.

So off to the machine shop!

First we needed a way to bolt the wheels to the Milling machine. So he fabricated this fixture plate to begin:





Front Before Modification


Front After Modification (new holes on a 5 on 5” pattern)


Front Closeup


Back Unmodified


Back Modified before clearance.


Back Modified with clearance (centers bored to clear the B-body 3.0625” hub).


That is where I stand for now. If desired, a 1 inch spacer can still be added to the front to fill out the wheelwells, while still allowing the rears to clear the skirted openings, and this way there are no issues fitting a standard spare tire.

It doesn't get any better than that.

now I want to see them on your wagon!

JaySS is going to be doing another set of those for sure. I love those mesh design rims.

Can i buy the four most neglectedest please for my bimmah?

Awesome idea and way cheaper than adapters!

Oh, and that's pretty awesome. Forgot to mention that before.

Nice job,....

The 1" spacer will eliminate the need to open up the centers. (Captain Obvious reporting for duty here...)

It appears that the centers seem to survive corrosion better than the baskets do. That's good, since refinishing the baskets seems simpler than the centers. I have some Caprice lace rims that I desperately want to refinish but it'd probably take hours.

Did the existing small holes interfere with drilling the new holes, or did the mill not care?

sherlock9c1 wrote:

Did the existing small holes interfere with drilling the new holes, or did the mill not care?

The mill doesn’t care, but the drill bit does. Since the existing holes will send a drill off into space, it is necessary to use an endmill to re-establish the centers and only then can a drill be used. In this case the existing holes weren’t fully removed by the first operation so a second, larger endmill was used to cut them to final size.

- J

Nice work. I've been shopping for a set of 'lace' grand Marquis rims for my Cougar, but can't seem to find any....(no drilling required there).

Very nice! Can't wait to see them on the car!

Our metric wheel studs are 12mm instead of 1/2 inch,dont know if this matters!

Flasheroo wrote:

Our metric wheel studs are 12mm instead of 1/2 inch,dont know if this matters!

I guess Doug better throw away the 1/2" wrench that came in the BMW service kit he got with the wheels...

sherlock9c1 wrote:

Flasheroo wrote:

Our metric wheel studs are 12mm instead of 1/2 inch,dont know if this matters!

I guess Doug better throw away the 1/2" wrench that came in the BMW service kit he got with the wheels...

You know what I am talking about,or maybe it went right over your head!

Update
Mounted one of the wheels on the car with a 1.25" spacer. Looks just about right.





Now I need to clean them up.

Man, I LOVE those wheels! I always wanted to try that style wheel on a B-body! I'm jealous. Wish I'd thought of it!

Looking sweet! Can't wait to see tires mounted!

If you want to see what a set of chrome BBS wheels look like on our wagons,go check out the post on my wagon (Flasheroos) and yes the black SS grill is gone as well as those vent visors!

I freak'n love it and that blue emblem suits the look especially on that color ride.

1993 Roady-man wrote:

I freak'n love it and that blue emblem suits the look especially on that color ride.

And BMW stands for Buick Motor Works, right?



Works for me!

Flasheroo wrote:

sherlock9c1 wrote:

Flasheroo wrote:

Our metric wheel studs are 12mm instead of 1/2 inch,dont know if this matters!

I guess Doug better throw away the 1/2" wrench that came in the BMW service kit he got with the wheels...

You know what I am talking about,or maybe it went right over your head!

OK, I give.

What are you referring to?

BMW’s use 12M x 1.5 bolts, B-body's use 12M x 1.5 studs.

- J

81X11 wrote:

1993 Roady-man wrote:

I freak'n love it and that blue emblem suits the look especially on that color ride.

And BMW stands for Buick Motor Works, right?



Works for me!

I like it and I like this one too. Buicks Magic Wagon

Looking good Douglas!

OH YES!!!!

Thanks for the compliments gents. I am really looking forward to getting them cleaned up and on the car.
Speaking of cleaning up. Fedex delivered some shiny objects last night...but this is for another thread...

Can't wait to see how it looks.

Hope you can get use to everybody asking how you got those BMW wheels to fit your wagon.Going to look GREAT when installed.What size tires are you going to use?

So,contrary to speculation, we actually have been working this project behind the scenes. I now have some updates to the BMW wheels. It's been a busy couple of weeks.

This is where we started. After several New England winters, they were pretty beat up.


Removing the bolts


Rims after separating and application of some heavy elbow grease.


Re-Assembly


Original BMW center caps


After some research, we found these parts from the 1990's Lincoln Continental could be adapted to the BMW caps.



Back on the car, with new 235/55 tires.


What do you think?

They look great . But why the lincoln center caps ?

I'm not exactly sure how I missed this whole thread, but the wheels do look good Doug!

You had me until the vogues... Save those for low riders and caddy's... Still looks great though! You get some buick overlays made up for the chrome lincoln caps?

toomanytoyz wrote:

You had me until the vogues... Save those for low riders and caddy's... Still looks great though! You get some buick overlays made up for the chrome lincoln caps?

WOW I did not realize the work you put into those! Very nice!! But like Bill the Vogues are not my taste and yes cover up those Ford centers.

if it were my car,.I think those rims would look better if the centres were body colour,.
that would make the vogues stand out,.
don't like the lincoln centres,.
Looks nice tho,.a set of bimmer headlights like mikes,.
mebbe fake grille like pat,..
could be the worlds biggest beemer vagen

Nick

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

WOW I did not realize the work you put into those!  Very nice!!  But like Bill the Vogues are not my taste and yes cover up those Ford centers.

Since the wheels were re-assembled on Tuesday (a fair amount of work in itself) the tires mounted & balanced on Wednesday, and finally bolted onto the car Thursday morning about an hour prior to leaving for WFNY, we were a little pressed for time.

This pic shows the car after washing the blue protectant off the whitewalls just moments before we left. You can see it is sitting a little high in the nose as it is already packed for the trip. The spare tire didn’t even get mounted on its respective wheel until Friday afternoon, after we were already in Seneca Falls.

toomanytoyz wrote:

You had me until the Vogues... Save those for low riders and caddy's... Still looks great though! You get some Buick overlays made up for the chrome Lincoln caps?

Well, you know red steelies and wide whites was our first choice, but they are so played out…

And yes, we know about the Lincoln emblems. The Buick centers were in-hand, but we didn’t like them enough to put them on and decided to hold out for some BBS-labeled appliques. As it was we must have heard “nice Lincoln wheels” 10 times if we heard it once. But they still look better than the original BMW plastic hexes.

Perhaps this will help everyone see where we are going with the caps:

http://www.stanceworks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4899&page=25

phantom 309 wrote:

if it were my car, I think those rims would look better if the centres were body colour, that would make the vogues stand out.

You may have called it right on that one, still trying to come to grips with the bright wheel & tire combo against the dark body color. Not sure where the center color will end up.

The intent was to do something different enough to make people form an opinion. Some see it and have gone out of their way to tell us they really appreciate the look, others have been quick to let us know they don’t like them, and that is OK too. Pretty much sums up the range of comments that we expected to hear. Either way, we’re not done just yet, so stay tuned.

- J

Bottom line is the only opinion that matters is the owners.The BBS stickers are easily made and much cheaper then my snap in center caps which run about 40 bucks each.The vogues are beginnig to grow on me for what its worth.I know this wasnt much of a challenge to Jay because you do make it look easy when I know its not.

As an added bonus I have to say that the Vogue tires ride really well and are very quiet on the highway.

It was a pleasant surprise to have the bonus of a quieter and smoother ride after the switch.