Alcoa 19.5" Wheels

I converted the original wheels on my 1965 Streamline Travel Home from 16.5" wheels to 19.5" wheels. I took this action as I could not find adequate replacement tires for the old wheels. The original tires were 1000 for the front, and 1200 for the rear, but the only wide tires I could find were load range "D". Although the unit had an original dry weight of 9,500 lbs., it weighed in at almost 11,000 lbs. when I took it to a public scale, so I would have been overloaded with the 16.5" tires. This weight was before the coach was packed with the normal personal effects and other items that I would have used for an outing.

The Alcoa wheels have the same bolt pattern as the original wheels. Moreover, the aluminum matches the aluminum of the coach nicely. (I tell myself that Streamline would have used these wheels if they had been available at the time the coach was manufactured!)

I converted the rear from single to dual wheels. They fit very well, although I had about 1/2" cut off an inside member on each side to ensure even greater clearance so that that there would be no rubbing due to tire flex while the unit was being driven. The tires that I used were low profile Michelins which gave me the same diameter as the original 16.5" wheels, so that there was no need to adjust the speedometer. The tires I used were 225/70R19.5 Michelin XZE 12P tires.

I was told that these wheels were hard to come by, as Michelin only produced a run when they received orders for 500 of the tires. I don't know if this is exactly right, as I found from the Alcoa website that the 500 requirement seems to be for what they call "Non-stock" wheels, and the ones I added were classified as "Stock wheels" on the site. I have extracted certain information from the Alcoa wheel specification file and it is displayed below. The original complete file can be found at:

http://www.alcoawheels.com/light/lituratur/images/LTFit-ScrnRes_01-24-02.pdf