Wide whitewall tires out of narrow ones

Many car enthusiasts are interested in the subject of Whitewall Tires, wanting to know more. We hope you find some useful information in this article. Please be aware that there are more articles on the subject of Whitewall Tires, easily found elsewhere on this site. 

 

 

Preamble

Looking for that old style wide whitewall tire look on your car? This may be what you are looking for, and at the right price to boot.

What you need

• *Some cheap 'tire pile' white wall tires or raised lettering types. You weren't going to use your new ones, were you?
• *A 4" angle grinder with a 'see-through' 36 grit grinding disc.
• *A DA sander with some 80 grit open paper on it.

*Yellow paint marking pen and a piece of string.

How to do it

Hopefully, you found yourself all of the same brand and size of tire to practice on before we get on to the new ones that you have for your car. Start by taking your grinder and removing some of the black rubber on each side of the white wall to see how far the white strip that is located below the surface of the tire sidewall extends.

When you have that established, take your string and tie it around the barrel of the paint pen (yellow is easy to see), and then take the other end and wind it around your index finger of your left hand. You are now going to use this setup as a set of dividers.

Place the point of your paint pen on the edge of the white strip, push down a couple of times on the pen to get some paint on the tip, with your left finger running around the outside of the tire radius try and keep an equal space, as you draw a line around the sidewall.

Next, move the pen to the inside line and do the same thing. You now have a rough outline of your new wide whitewalls.

Now, take your grinder and remove the black rubber within this outlined area. Try not to gouge into the 'new' white rubber.Occasionally,use long curved strokes to even out the ground area, it doesn't have to be perfect yet.

When you get all the way around the sidewall, give it a few final touch ups to remove any bits of black rubber and smooth out some of the rough spots.

Next, take your DA sander and run it around the sidewall to smooth it out. Practice makes perfect.

Finally, give it a coat of Wesley's Whitewall Tire Bleach, and buff the sidewalls. Looks good! Now do a couple more.

Resources

• Video on making our own wide whitewall tires

• Norton AVOS Speed-Lok grinding disc 

Contributors to this page

Alittle1, Jon, Techinspector1