Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Hi guys, just wondering if any of you have had your wheels banded? That's what we call it in UK anyway? It's big in the car scene here, basically cutting your rim in two, and welding a band between them to get what width you desire?
But Iv never heard of it done on a bike? Iv got two honda Melody, one is kind of staying normal and retro, apart from lowering it, band the wheels inch wider, and some white wall tyres,
The other bike will be having a big heart transplant with modern running gear

Would love to know if banding is possible.
I'm sure there must be a way of joining melody hubs to wider rims.

Well I'm going to try it on mine, and try make a deep dish for rear and offset the engine to compensate?? Watch this space

Going to take it in to work tomorrow and clean the rim up, then cut it in half, and try find some sheet to form a band and widen it??

The way I seen it done is they cut the rim all around the bead area, and weld on a ring to get the depth they want.
They cut up a wide ATV or lawn tracktor steel wheel for the spacer.

The way they do it here on cars is cut the rim off where it sits on the centre, then cut strip of steel what ever width you want to run? Roll it in the rollers, then tack it to you wheel centre, then tack your rim back on, then just weld it all up! Charge about £45/50 a wheel, but as this led is going to be standard and only do about 25mph, il have a go myself, I work in a body repair shop anyway and do welding, so it's just find some steel??

Stayed on at work for extra hour to make a start, cleaned my best rim up, marked it, then cut it using real thin cutting disk, then cut a length steel 3" wide, and bent it round the gas bottle of our welder as we don't have rollers
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Got it together yesterday

What you think? I'm going to reinforce it somehow

So what type and exact size tire is going on this bad boy u got there?

I'm hoping a 130/70 white wall, with a tube in to blow it up??

Bob great job on the wheel widening, that skill was very common here in Michigan in the 1960's, there are sand dunes here and in order to float on top of the sand, dune buggy guys needed wide wheels, and wide wheels could not be purchased since they didnt exist yet. Cutting and widening them became common for many years, until wide wheels became available to purchase.
It is great to see your skills, I am glad you posted this, so many of the guys who did this in the 60's are dead now.
I hope you post pictures after painting and after tire mounting to see the story to its end.

Cheers guys, it's nice to hear good feedback, didn't know if I would get a slating fo doing it saying it's not safe and stuff!
My first car was and old Ford anglia 1960, with wide arches and banded wheels, and I loved it, then everything went wide alloys and shiney rims with the whole fast and furious theme, but a lot of people in VW scene still use the banded steel look, there are two big company's doing it here, it's rough £50 a car wheel, that's cutting the our rim off, then the band on, then rim back on, if you wanted the centre moved to adjust the centre offset it would cost much more! Plus Iv never seen one on a bike
Also going to do my front wheel, but only 1.5inch wider,
You seen this look loads on your Ruckas, looking forward to getting it fitted, I may have to trim off the Exhaust mounting off the engine casing to clear the tyre,
Not sure on the handling? But not bothered as leaving standard engine in it so only do about 25mph,

I put the engine back in earlier so I could see how the wheel fits, and work out my engine spacing

This is where is will roughly fit two inches higher than normal ride hight, but as you can see in this pic the wheel is offset about 30mm, so if I get a chance il modify my mount in work tomorrow and bring it over 30mm and backwards another 20mm to give bit more room to clear the frame

Nice engineering
Post some pics of the engine mount plate, was considering a mild stretch on my Deluxe 2.