Had a play around with my wheels the other day just trying to get a picture of backspacing, centre hole, etc to see what my options are in regards to wheel fitiment on my bug.

Looks like a small positive offset and an ability to re-drill drums and disks to basically whatever PCD I want (Assuming I have blanks, which look easy to come by).

Only issue I see is with the fronts, the centre hole (where your stub axle comes through the centre of the rotor) is 81mm, that is massive, if you are going to a 5x114.5 PCD that would leave f-all meat on the rim between the stud holes and the centre hole.

So was wondering........

Anyone running a 5x114.5 PCD (or 4 x 114.5 PCD)?

Anyone running non-standard hubs with a smaller outter bearing so you have a smaller centre hole - I am assuming it is because the outter bearing is rather large that contributes to such a wide centre opening in the rotor?

Anyone running custom hubs?

I have wide guards and a set of 17x8's lying around - Fitting them on the rears seems straight forward enough, with re-drilling a set of blank drums or even just re-drilling a re-using 1 hole.

BUT............the only way I can see that you can do the front is by running a set of custom hubs with a small centre opening in order to run this smaller PCD?

joel runs 4x100
im 5x114.3
others use 5x120/130
pretty sure one forum member mentioned they ran 5x112
the pcd isnt really a drama, finding wheels to fit over the dust cap and axle nut/split pin on the rear is the difficult bit!
falcon wheels seem to do the trick on mine, the centerbore is 70.1mm from memory, given the low offset of pre au models it gives you plenty of meat to hide the cap/nut in -mind you everyones setups will be slightly different depending on hubs/discs/guards used - and if your the beam type, how far someones narrowed it.

What wheel PCD is it? Remember VW is 4x130 so using one existing hole only works if you go to 5x130. Thats pretty large.Find the brake rotor you want to use. Work out what options you have for PCD and then that will led you to available wheels...

Hi

I have 5x100s on my sons bug, I had to cutdown the wheel centring section and the grease cap outer part.

Steve

This photos shows 5x100 and the grease cap mod, not mine, I used blank rotors on my sons bug

As stidub mentioned I've got 4x100 on mine, stock disc on the front, originally stock rear drums but now discs.

With the front I run discs that don't have the hubcentric ring but all discs since 73 have this but like Steve's above that can be machined off.

I've had about 10 different sets of aftermarket rims on mine and all of them have fit but as mentioned its the center caps that are the problem.

Only the Speedy lite-7s I'm running now have cleared the rear axle nut.
Bearing dust caps on the front were only a problem with one set but that only took some light panel beating to fix.

With blanks you can go any PCD from 98mm outwards, 5x130 Porsche would be the biggest common size

Sweet :-)!!!

I was thinking custom hubs or spacers was the only way around this!

So either machine em down and re-drill for the PCD I want - like displayed............or buy a set of blank rotors and drill and tap them for the PCD I want.

Can you buy blank rotors without the centering ring?

Found these, but they are drilled already.

http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=VWC-113-407-075 

I have a nice of 17x8's in a 6p offset, which will a quick trial fit the other day seemed to fit my car perfectly - I have a widebody kit.

Might make steering at low speeds interesting though with 225 rubber on the front :-)!

^ tha above is the same wheel size as me, 2" wider guards, no issues with anything

as for steering, go 205 or 215's if you can

I take it you fellows who have machined off this outta ring have never had a rotor failure?

Possible to re-drill and tap a 4x130 to 5x114.3 PCD?

Yeah, the 17x8's I have were on a 260Z which I did custom big brakes on and it used to follow every contour on the road, was pretty ordinary to drive around town.............wheels look good though :-)!

As long as you don't let a 4 year old do up your wheel nuts you wont have a problem

As I mentioned the ring was only on brakes starting from 73, nothing before 72 had them, but all new discs and drums now have them and most have been replaced after 40 years.
They're only there to help center the wheel abit better to prevent shudder.

I was just lucky to have a low mileage 72 beetle with barely worn brakes that I parted out so I didn't have to machine them off.

With redrilling to 5 stud, forget using the originals, buy some aftermarket blanks, as they have a uniform thickness hub.

THe original brakes front and rear have 4 strengthening ribs in the hub to pick up the stock 4x130 pattern.

Redrilling to 5 stud misses nearly all of these and goes through the thin material in between them

My black beetle had Porsche rims on it with redrilled 4 stud brakes.

You can see 3.5 holes out of 5 are through thin metal and have about 3 threads each.
No engineer would pass that.
Even press in studs is iffy because of how thin it is.

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=87353&page=1#pid821028 

This is a link to where you can get some quality rear hubs from.

Also i think when i was hunting around John Sherman said he custom makes his brake rotors so call him a he may be able to machine up some new hubs with what ever PCD you need and might even have some offset options...
He was very helpful but a bit exy

Yeah noticed that ribbing for the rear Drums, so didn't look like an option to do a re-drill (adding new holes to the existing ones) or going to a different stud pattern for the reasons you have outlined.

Guess I could pour weld into it and beef up the area.............but why bother when I can just go to a disc rear end and be supplied with blank rotors that I can drill out to whatever PCD I want...............plus Drums suck :-)!

Yeah that will be fine, you just have to decide whether you want to fit studs or use wheel bolts like original.

Theres a few places in aus that sell blanks so u just gotta work out if your saving that much buying over seas then havign to freight it here.

Should cost me under $700 for Rear Disc Brake Kit complete with Blank Rotors and a Set of Blank Front Rotors from CIP1, that is marginally cheaper than buying it locally it seems.

However, when I order it from CIP1 I actually recieve what I order in about 4 days :-)!

Been waiting 2 weeks now for stuff from ClassicVeeDub, dude says stuff is on the way, then I call 3 days later and he says he is waiting on a part and he will ship tomorrow...........No problems mate...............still waiting on my adjustable swing axles :-)!