hi, i'm rebuilding a mark1 supasport for use on road and bush up here in the mountains near cairns, can anyone advise if they have registered big wheels/tyres in qld. my rear wheels are 15"x8" and i want to know what is legal. photos later. gftarps@hotmail.com

In short NO .... 15 x 7 yes, 15 x 8 no they are illegal.

Beetle had 4/1/2 " rims and you can go 1.5 by that so 6/3/4 is it but they norammly let you round it up to 7" no probs. If you can find factory 5/1/2 rims then you could win the argument as that would mean 8.25.
1.5 is for offroad / solid axle 4wd. BUT since they made us pad our roll bars they had to reclass us in accordance with their own rules of Off Road vehicles.

Brad,

I run 225/R15s on the back. When I had the rear wheels made I took special note of the wheel off set I needed to get the tyres where I wanted them. At the moment they a close to the top shock mounts on the inside and they sit level with the rear guards on the out side. Isn't this the largest that I can go legally without extending the rear guards?

the manx is a funny case. The rules do not say the tyres cannot protude past the body, they say they must not protude past the body further than the original tyres.

So that depends on how far the original manufacturer (Bruce Meyers) specified the wheels should protrude.

I think Brad was trying to get clarification from Bruce on what the original tyre size and offset was, so that we could use this for justification of the tyre sizes most people run. I am not sure where he got with it though.

The new mod rules (that should be in soon?) were going to have a clause saying you can run any size tyres you want, providing the vehicle is suitably modified to accept them (ie recalibrated speedo, lower gearing, stronger susp where needed). I will have to find out when and if this is still coming in. Should find out in the next couple of weeks.

I run 31 x 10.5 x 15 on a 15 x 7" rim and they do not protrude past the rear guards on the manx, I have 285 x 75 x 16 on my other manx and they fit under also ( )

As for the rules I have spoken to Main Roads and they don't seem to think any protruding is allowed. that being said I got a defect notice on about 2000 and took it over the pits with 31 x 10.5 x 15 and won the argument based on what Wes said in his post.
There was a pamflet put out in about 1990 that said VW had different rules with tyres and could run upto a 7" rim and a heap of other stuff.

Bring on the new rules I say....... then my 16 x 8" rims will look much closser to legal :cry