I got some free wilwood wide 5 rear axle stuff. Bearings, rotors, calipers, hubs with drive plates, etc
speedway sells 9” housings that take this stuff in 54, 56, 58, 60” widths.
can anyone tell me how the housing width relates to the wheel mount surface width? Speedway has a 58 and 60 housings on clearance for sub $250 shipped, but I don’t want to guess wrong just because cheap.
The housing width, IIRC, relates to the hub face to hub face. (My rear is built with a "standard" centered-pinion 58 inch left side and 60 inch right side, for a 59" axle with the pinion shifted a half inch left) When the kind person at Dutchman called me up to verify my order, he asked me what brakes I was going to use. I told him that I was making my own disk setup, but for future-proofing to make the brake distance a standard figure, so he gave me a 2.5" brake depth on each side.
So my housing should be 54" flange to flange, but it would be called a 59" housing.
Assuming (large assumption) that floater hubs are all built the same whether Wide-5, or 5-on-5 (or 5 on 4 3/4), that should also mean the same thing - the axle width as listed is for the hub face to hub face, since that is the important figure. Circle track stuff is nice like that, wheels are defined in terms of backspacing (the important thing to know), etc.
BTW - I didn't need to know that Speedway has those on sale. Fortunately the price of hubs and axles and everything would be more than, say, just buying a complete floater from Summit and no shipping.
Its important, but not critical, because you can get your wide five wheels built in pretty much any offset you want. I'd phone and ask them about their measurement system. I was a bit weirded out when I discovered stock car wheels backspacing is measured from the floor, not the bead of the wheel.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
That's another example of why it makes sense. You don't rub bodywork or suspension components with the bead surface.
Makes converting backspace to offset a bit of a crapshoot though. I usually figure a half inch for the bead. (zero offset 7" wheel should have a 4 inch backspace)
/+V I have a Nice Speedway Floater for a G body and cost is about 200 Less for a Complete Rear than Parts to build Mine
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