OK Gentlemen, I think this 2 piece law might be an old law still on the books that was needed a long time ago being applied or understood incorrectly. I think the two piece wheel they might be referring to would be the real old school true "spit rim", or the "Widow Maker" as they were called back in the 50's.

The wheel Andrew shared is actually what they call a "split ring"or "snap ring" wheel and these are still legal. What was outlawed years ago and for good reason was the 2 piece split rim that came apart in the middle of the rim. I just went out to the back 40 and found a couple of these that came off of my old 53 Chevy one ton.

Very few know how to do this anymore but I took it apart and then started it back on half way to show how it works. Two things to note... If you look close on both sides there are areas where there is no lip on the ring to catch behind the lip of the wheel center part. The hole is actually oval shaped so that it can be assembled. The first half is started on up to those oval spots like I have it at this stage of assembly. The oval spots allow just enough diameter clearance to slide further onto and over the lip of the main wheel part. If it didn't have these two spots it wouldn't go on at all.

But something important to note is how little actual lip area there is to grab under the main wheel lip because of the oval shape and how skinny that catch lip really is. If they were worn a bit from mounting several times or really rusty they were going to fly apart when you inflated them. Hence the "Widow Maker" and banishment from wheel land for good reason. I heard stories when I was a kid about how they would even fly apart while driving the vehicle.

The real and true "2 piece Split Rim"...

 

thanks for sharing that.... bugout...

I don't recall the actual "name" for the specific type I was thinking of.... the ones where the outer piece has a groove in the middle of it, and it is heated and then placed onto the center piece of the wheel and when the outer cools it locks it into place.

 

I would be interested to find out more if you run across it. This is how they assemble train tires onto the wheels and axles so it is completely feasible and probably just as strong as anything else. Everything I ever saw (or noticed) were riveted, spot welded, or arc welded. But I may have ran across some but didn't pay attention and notice. I could see them doing this as the first stage in assembling the wheels that are spot welded, it would hold everything tight and the weld would just be secondary backup.

 

I don't know the name/style it's called...but a good number of years ago I actually saw it done. The outer piece (ring) was a wider wheel and had a grooved "seat" in the middle of it. It was heated to a pretty high temp, then the center piece that contained the lug holes was inserted, then it was quenched and it was locked together for good. I do not believe any secondary spot welding was used. The wheel reminded me of an old school hotrod type wheel. Deep dish style with a baby moon center and cover. So it's possible that what I personally witnessed being built were custom wheels, and not a method that would have been used for the masses on regular street vehicles.

 

That's actually an early method of construction. That's how metal tires were installed onto wooden wagon wheels. I use this method to install new ring gears onto flywheels. Just throw it on the BBQ for a bit and then drop it on the flywheel.

 

I typically don't like steelies but I like the looks of the late-model steelies (like in Caish's post #39) as well, and I had them on mine for years--until recently. I replaced them because they have what I consider a design flaw that rears its head on occasion. Just behind the face of the wheel, there is a deep groove in the rim. This groove constantly traps a considerable amount of rain water that eventually evaporates. However, in freezing weather, the water freezes in the bottom of the groove while parked and acts like a weight to throw off the wheel balance until it thaws. Dried or frozen mud is even worse. Of course you would probably never experience this in warmer/dryer climes.

 

Off road i rather have a steel rim over a cast aluminum rim,A steel rim will bend you can beat it back in to shape to get home.A cast aluminum will crack and shatter if you hit it hard enough.I have never seen water or mud inside a rim on a normal car,A mud bog type truck i have a time or two.

 

I prefer a steel wheel off road as well, so I replaced my stock steel wheels with aftermarket steel wheels that didn't have a problem trapping ice and mud and throwing them out of balance.

I'm not sure what you mean by "inside a rim". It doesn't trap water inside the tire, it's between the face of the wheel and where the rim of the wheel meets it. I'll try to get a picture of what I'm talking about, because it's hard to explain and is unique to the (flawed) design of those particular steel wheels. The face of the wheel forms the outer portion of the rim where the outer bead and wheel weights are, rather than on a normal steel wheel where the entire rim is a single piece (where the tire beads seat) and that is welded to a center section.

Trying to explain this illustrates one reason why I don't like it when people use the terms "wheel" and "rim" as synonyms, because they simply are not the same thing. A rim is a specific part of a wheel.

 

Rim > Tire > Wheel

Its like flexplate and flywheel lol

 

Rim is greater than tire is greater than wheel? I don't get it.

The terms rim, tire and wheel describe three different things. A rim is part of a wheel. A tire is not part of a wheel. It's not at all like flexplate and flywheel. A flexplate is not part of a flywheel or vice-versa. But, flexplate and flywheel describe two non-interchangeable things that serve a similar purposes.

Here are 3 parts. Together, they make a wheel. When these three things are together as one unit, they are a wheel regardless of if they separate into parts or not. These three parts do not combine together to make a rim.




This is a tire mounted on a wheel:





Glasses and bowls, among other things, have parts called rims as well but you never hear anyone saying they bought new rims for the kitchen. But, if you want to call a wheel a "rim" I guess you might as well go ahead, since it seems nearly everyone does.

I will apologize now for being so particular and I'll blame it on my education. LOL

 

Lol... Go click edit on your post here. That second image file name is a doosey.

But this terminology for wheel parts has changed a lot over the years.

 

LOL... throw it on the BBQ... hmm... fire up some wings and a set of wheels at the same time... brilliant!

Yeah, I know about the even older school wooden wagon wheel construction too.... it's almost a lost art in this day and age. I've seen that done in person too... pretty cool.

 

You're certainly not wrong with modern construction methods for multiple piece wheels... we were talking more of really old school methods that really aren't used anymore like they were back in the day. lol.

 

It's just a arrow representation.

You can't have a wheel without a tire and rim.

And a lot of people call a flexplate a flywheel including myself until I learned the difference.

 

Yep, it works well because the current popular method of heating it in a couple spots with a torch to expand it and slip it on anneals the teeth and makes them soft. The BBQ doesn't get hot enough to anneal it.