| | | quote | Originally posted by CenTexIndy:
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! 
|
|
Since Ron has spilled our Holy Grail of pictures of the Indy Disks, here goes. The five pictures that Ron has shown are only five in a series of 78 pictures that I took for the purpose of documenting the measurements of the disk. The pictures are of the wheels and disks that are actually on Indy #2 at GM. The front and rear disks have different dimensions. I have been working on this project for a number of years and finally this week, I am able to put tool to aluminum to make reproduction disks. It was'nt until spring 2007 that I was able to find and purchase a set of the correct Centerline Q style wheels. The pictures above of the wheels and disks were taken in October 2004 at the GM double secret warehouse. Ron and myself were granted access to Indy #2 for the purpose of accurately measuring the disks. We spent nearly four hours with the wheels and disks to satisfy my need for accurate measurments.
Here are some snap shots of the 3D CAD Drawing done in PRO-E. This is a rear disk. The front has a deeper dish due to the larger front wheel offset.
The information I have accumulated on the Centerline Wheels are as follows: There were five sets of custom made wheels made for the three Indy Fiero track Pace Cars. The disk was made by Centerline contracted by Pontiac along with the custom "X" style wheels. The fronts are 16 x 7 with a 38mm offset and 5-1/2" backspacing. The center of the front wheel was custom made to maintain the correct offsets and backspacing for the Fiero with the hub hole and lug spacing (5x 4-3/4") machined to fit the F- body front rotor. The rears are 16 X 8 with a 35mm offset and 5-7/8" backspacing. The center of the rear wheel was custom made to maintain the correct offsets and backspacing for the Fiero with the hub hole and lug spacing (5x 115mm) machined to fit the Pontiac 6000 rear bearings. These custom wheels were sent to Pontiac as Prototype material and as far as I know, there are only two sets in existance; Indy #1 and Indy #2. Indy #3 was changed to a DGP widebody as the PPG Pace Car and the wheels were changed to the wider 16 x 8 front and 16 x 10 in the rear. The other two back up sets were destroyed in the great 1998 GM warehouse cleanout along with three pallets of Indy Fiero back-up parts available during the 84 Indy 500. Centerline also made a small undetermined number of the X style wheels for the GM owned DGP widebody cars with the Indy disk and the F-body/6000 wheel center combination. There is a set on the PPG Pace Car at the Chicago Science and Industry Museum and one set at GM in their spare parts inventory. Paced 84 has been trying to buy these wheels out of the GM warehouse for years with no luck due to the GM liability issue. For the sake of convenience, I am using a set of Centerline Q style wheels with the standard Fiero 5x100 bolt pattern for my project in reproducing the disks. I made an attempt to obtain the original blueprints from Centerline for the custom X style wheels and Indy disks, but unfortunately there is no archive left. I did get to have a phone conversation with an engineer who worked on the project. The most important point that was made was that the disks were made by hand using a manual lathe and mill. No CNC machines were available at the time the wheels were made in late 1984.
The X and Q style Centerline Wheels look identical in physical features and are a true three piece design. The X style were the early design that Pontiac mainly used on their Prototype cars. The bead where the three pieces were riveted together was a flat flange with a flat gasket. This design was flawed and the wheel would not maintain tire pressure for long. During testing by Pontiac, many wheels were destroyed because the center gasket would walk between the rivets under load and would cause sudden tire pressure loss. This is the main reason why Pontiac did not offer this wheel on the Indy Fiero replicas as an OEM option in addition to the cost issue with the bean counters. Centerline redesigned the wheel and offered them to the public as the Q style. The flange where the three pieces are riveted together was indexed to capture a large O-ring and eliminated the sudden lose of tire pressure. The Q style wheel was offered in polished aluminum or satin clear anodized.
So far, I am at about $1800.00 in to this project and I still have some undetermined money to spend after we figure out how long it will take to do the final machining on the disk to fit to the wheel. Then on to the task of polishing the wheels and disks. I figure that I will spend about $600.00 for rubber to go on the wheels. I am hoping to have these finished to debut at the 25th Anniversary Show.
------------------
Fred Bartemeyer
Chairman Heartland Fieros
http://www.heartlandfieros.com
86 GT 4spd Black 26k miles
87 GT 5spd. Blue 37k miles
88 Silver T-Top Formula 284,000 miles
85 Yellow PPG GTP Pace Car
84 Indy 4spd 193 miles
88 Coupe Auto
87 GT 5 spd Annette's Sunshine Driver
88 GT 5 spd Annette's Daily Driver
.jpg)
%20(Small).JPG)
