Southern_Hospitality

Guys, will FWD aftermarket wheels fit on my Cutlass. The wheels are 5x4.75 as my Cutlass is the same bolt pattern. Need your help as soon as possible. Thanks!

TripDeuces

No, the offset is wrong. Too much positive offset will place the wheels too far under the car

joe_padavano

I'm not aware of any FWD car with the 5 x 4.75" bolt pattern. 4.75" is a 120.65 mm bolt circle. There ARE FWD wheels with 5 x 120 mm bolt circle. These should not be used on a 4.75" bolt circle car in any case.

svnt442

Joe if you look at it as just a large positive offset vs fwd or rwd then yes there are. All S10 4x4 use a large positive offset and a 5 x 4.75 bolt pattern. Also the C4/C5/C6 Corvettes use that same style of wheel but is of course much larger and varies depending on the year.

joe_padavano

I don't disagree with that, and in fact it's popular to use the late model Vette wheels on earlier Vettes by using spacers to make up for the offset. My whole point was not the offset but the bolt pattern. There are no FWD cars with the 5 x 4.75 bolt pattern that I am aware of. I'm nearly 100% certain that the OP was trying to put 5 x 120mm wheels on a 5 x 4.75" bolt circle.

Olds64

I'm surprised Corvette enthusiasts swap wheels by using wheel spacers. IMHO, wheel spacers are a bad idea.

joe_padavano

Cheapo die cast Pep Boys spacers are a bad idea. Modern machined spacers that have the proper pilot features to keep the spacer hub-centric on the hub and to keep the wheel hub-centric on the spacer are fine. You need to use longer studs to compensate. These are much more expensive than the spacers you are thinking of.

As a matter of fact, I have a set of 2" spacers between the rear wheels on my dually due to the oversize tires I'm running. I've had them for years and towed a lot of cars and a lot of horses with no problems. As I noted these have a machined center bore that fits over the hub and a machined male feature that centers the outboard wheel on the spacer. In my case there are actually double wheel studs due to the thickness of the spacer. The stock studs hold the spacers and inboard wheels to the hubs. The spacers have a second set of studs clocked between the eight original ones that hold the outboard wheels to the spacers. I actually got these from Fred Groeske, the former rocket-powered funny car driver who now has a small shop in the San Fernando Valley making wheel spacers. I picked them up in person and Fred was very interested when I told him that I'm an aerospace engineer. He opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a hydrogen peroxide rocket engine that he developed himself.

joe_padavano

Here's what one of Fred's spacers looks like:

svnt442

What about Toronados? I don't know about the early ones, but the 80s version were in fact 5 x 4.75. I worked with a guy at American Racing Wheels back in 1991 that had one and was complaining that the only wheel available for it were the ones that fit 4x4 S10s.

joe_padavano

You are correct. Mea culpa. I thought those Toros were 120 mm, but they are not. Here's the front rotor for an 84 Toro:



Of course, as you have found, the OP was asking about a "FWD" wheel for a 4.75" bolt pattern and they don't exist, so I still maintain that the OP was actually looking at a 120 mm wheel.

Olds64

Interesting pic Joe. Those spacers look alot different than the ones I'm thinking of. If you've towed using those spacers before then I guess they work fine.