Wide 5 Origin

[radracr]

I've always been curious as to the origin. Anybody know? Thanks

[jwmbishop]

I believe adaptation from the 40's spicer truck rears. With the desire for full floating axles somewhere in the late 70 to mid 80's racers started modifying the truck rears as they were a heck of a lot more available and stronger - already in heavy duty parts and had the pass through pinion - early quick change. Frankland was one of the first (if not the first) to market them to others. And of course started redesigning, lightening them etc.

[walt]

The early truck rears 3/4 ton ford that were used for a full floter had that bolt pattern.. But i can remember going to the junk yard in the mid 60s looking 15'' caddy or buick wheels and buick aluminum brake drums that were on the front of early 50s buicks. In my case we would take the wheels and alum brake drums to our local speed shop that was also a machine shop , and he would cut the center out of the alum drum to fit exactly on the ridge of the alum wide five drum made by Frankland and drill the holes in the wide five pattern .. the brake shoe suface on the buick drum was the same width as the ford truck3/4 ton rear. The axel snout on the ford rear was the same as the franklad wide five alum hub.. so you would use the ford backing plate and brake shoes and slip the frankland hub and alum brake drum over the ford snout . Frankland designed the alum hubs so that they used the same size bearings ,and the axels from the ford rear would fit perfect .. the rear I used was from a 1948 ford and it was spit tube with the center simalar to a quick change. Hilabrand made a quick change center with rear load, that you could you could subsitute for your center and use your axel tubes and axels, or you could buy a after market ring and pinion for the ford center , mine was a 6:20 r&p as i remember and we used a 3 speed trans from a 55 chevy.

As for the wheels that speed / machine shop would cut the inside and outside lip off the wheels and weld in a wider center to streech it out to 12 inches wide for the( harder than hell) M&H 12 inch tread race dirt tire .. then they would weld in a wide fie bolt pattern of 1/4 steel..

As for the front , my track Lebanon Valley Speedway in New York was a 5/8 s high bank( 30 degrees ) alot of sportsman cars( 55 chevy ),

they would take a 12 inch wheel and weld in a flat plate in the center and drill out the 5 on 4/3/4 bolt pattern and put that big 12 inch tire and wheel on the right front and use a 14 inch stockon the left front , to get them to turn better . Well alot of right front spindels were breaking , so Frankind had a snout kit ( bolt on ) that would go over your spindel and you could bolt the buick backing plate to it and that took care of that problem.. Thats all I know about the early wide five stuff, Things have sure changed .. Walt