Wheel offset for 1967 Overlander

[Fishbone]

Can anyone tell me the best way to measure wheel offset and what the factory wheels should have for offset. I measured mine on the front side from the edge of wheel throught the center hole to the back mounting face and then on the back side from the edge of the wheel to the mounting face and come up with about a +1/4" offset.
Thanks

[overlander64]

Greetings phoney!

I recently purchased new wheels for my '64 Overlander and a spare for my '78 Argosy. The specifications were the same for each:

• 15" x 6" wheel with 2,600 pound or greater weight rating.
• 6 lugs on 5.5" centers
• 4.25" center bore
• 0.0 offset

If your Overlander is like mine when I first purchased it, previous owners had mixed and matched wheels until there was no way to tell if any of the wheels were OEM. The specifications that I used to order my wheels were found here on this site.

Kevin

[Fishbone]

And to you,
I appreciate your reply. I have checked the wheels on my AS and they all appear to be the same but none of them have any marks of any kind. I bought the trailer from people that owned it for may years and everthing else was original so I thought the wheels would be too. I wonder if all wheels for AS are the same?
Do you think I measured them correctly?
Where did you get your wheels?
Gary

[overlander64]

Greetings Gary!

I ordered my wheels for the Overlander from Trailer Tire and Wheels Supermart. My steel wheels were purchased through my local Good Year tire dealer from one of their suppliers (less than $60/wheel). This time, I went with aluminum wheels for the Overlander's road wheels from the above merchant -- the wheels that I selected are pictured below:



I am quite satisfied with the wheels -- I had them installed along with new tires earlier this month. Shipping and handling were quite reasonable compared to what I had to pay for the shipping and handling on my steel wheels for the '75 Cadillac Eldorado.

Kevin

[Fishbone]

Kevin,
That is one hot looking wheel! At this point a wheel like that would upstage my Trailer.
Did my description of measuring offset sound right to you?
Gary

[overlander64]

Greetings Gary!

I always have trouble interpreting measurements -- your method sounds correct to me. I am somewhat surprised at the positive -- I would have expected a negative offset if any. Most of the trailer rated wheels that I looked at were either zero offset -- or up to .25" positive offset until the 16" and larger wheels were encountered. My Eldorado has a positive offset of what you indicate and it has been a real issue with keeping the wheels true.

Kevin

[Fishbone]

Kevin,
I may be confused about the + or -. The inside was the longer side by 1/4 inch, is that inset? Now I know I'm confused, I may have to go out and measure to be sure. I just checked and it is inset.
Thanks,
Gary

[markdoane]

You didn't say what math you used to come up with the 1/4", but I would do it this way:

Lay the wheel on a flat surface. Measure as you did from the floor, through the center hole, to the hub mounting face.

Turn the wheel over. Measure from the floor to the same hub face. Subtract the lower measurement from the higher, divide by two, the result should be the offset.

So if the measurements are 3.75 inches and 4.25 inches, the offset would be 1/4 inch.

[easyride]

All Airstreams have 0 offset.

[markdoane]

Originally Posted by easyride

All Airstreams have 0 offset.

Can't give you a valid response to this, as I haven't measured every Airstream. I can state that mine ('59) came originally with 1/2" offset.

[overlander64]

There are very few absolutes with Airstreams. What with running changes sometimes being made, material shortages/back-orders, etc. -- differences are frequent with the Vintage coaches. I suspect that the zero offset applies to "most" if not all of the coaches made with Henschen Dura-Torque axles. I would expect differences to be more prevalent in the pre-Henschen days of Airstream particularly when what were often described as Dodge truck wheels were used on production coaches.

Kevin

P.S.: All one must do is deal with Argosy coaches for a short time to develop an understanding of how difficult it can be to make any all-inclusive statements about a product.

[Fishbone]

I'm not sure I understand why you divide the difference by 2. Wouldn't your example be 1/2 offset? When trying to research Dexter axles they have a picture that show offset but they don't say how to arrive at the answer.
Thanks,
Gary

Originally Posted by markdoane

You didn't say what math you used to come up with the 1/4", but I would do it this way:

Lay the wheel on a flat surface. Measure as you did from the floor, through the center hole, to the hub mounting face.

Turn the wheel over. Measure from the floor to the same hub face. Subtract the lower measurement from the higher, divide by two, the result should be the offset.

So if the measurements are 3.75 inches and 4.25 inches, the offset would be 1/4 inch.

[markdoane]

When you measure from each edge (front, then back) of the wheel to the hub face, you need to divide by 2 to find the centerline (average) of the wheel.

Best way to see this is to draw a three lines on a piece of paper, 4 inches apart. If the two outside lines represent the outside edges of the wheel, and the center line is the hub face, then the measurements from each edge to the hub face would be 4 inches, and the offset would be zero.

Now move the centerline one inch to the left, so the offset would be one inch. But the measurements from the edges would now be 3 inches and 5 inches. So the offset would be 5 minus 3 divided by 2, or 1 inch. QED.

[Fishbone]

That makes sense now. Thanks for your patience and the very detailed explanation. I will double check mine to see what the offset really is.
Is QED an acronym for something?
Gary

[markdoane]

Gary,

You're most welcome. QED is indeed an acronym, which stands for "quod erat demonstrandum". It means "therefore is demonstrated". It really means something like "and Bob's your uncle", or "so that's that!".

Another way to measure offset is to measure the backspace, which is second measurement you made, and subtract the half of the wheel width. If the backspace is larger than half the wheel width, the offset is positive. Otherwise if the backspace is smaller, the offset is negative. Of course if the two numbers are the same, the offset is zero.