Classic Alfa Forums

Hello gents,

Anybody here on the board with detailed knowledge on the steel wheel specification for the S1/S2 TI & S1 Sprint? 2 different widths are available 5J & 5.5J from Alfa. Were the 5.5J rims for example only intended for the Sprint and the TI was equipped with the 5J version?

In addition there seem to be some different colours for these steel rims. The TI ones seem matt grey on the documentation I've found for the S1 & S2, but for the S1 Sprint it seems more silver/metallic like. Anybody with some colour information or colour codes with regards to what the factory specification was?

Any reply is appreciated, cheers

The 5.5" wheels were for the Ti and I presume Sprint and all the UK cars had the grey steel wheels or alloys. I know the brochures show a car with silver wheels but speaking as a Sud fan since their launch and buying my 1976 car, which I still have, in 1978. I have never seen an original car with silver steel wheels. I was once given the paint code for the grey wheels but lost that many years ago.

Hello Crank, thanks for the reply. If the 5.5J are for the TI & Sprint for which vehicle are the 5J ones? The design is 100% the same, the only difference is the width. I wonder if for example the S1 TI was equipped with the 5J and the S2 had the 5.5J with corresponding increased tyre width as an update compared to the initial spec.

Or are these 5J ones for vehicle of a different brand?

Should you find the grey colour code I would be very interested.

I was told the early S1 ti's had 5J wheels, was only a few years in that the 5.5's became the norm...

KevJTD wrote:I was told the early S1 ti's had 5J wheels, was only a few years in that the 5.5's became the norm...

I have heard the same as what Kev says.
This is a photo of one of the wheels on NUM 56 P.
I am sure Jon tried to get as near a match as possible when he had them refurbished knowing the cars amazing originality.
Any help ?

Hi Keith,
Love NUM 56P but the wheels are not the right colour. The original colour was an off white. The Series 1 below has the original off white wheel colour. The Series 2 below has the original S2 silver wheels.
I hope this is helpful.

Brgds,
Simon

Here is another pic of the original colour on the same car in low light:
Brgds,
Simon

Hi Simon,
I see what you mean they are light.
Do you think most people just chose to change the colour out of personnel choice?

Hi Keith,
Just found another picture in my Alfa Book:
I would think that owners may have painted their wheels silver because it was almost the universal wheel colour and the more modern Suds had silver painted wheels too.

I reckon the off white was a bit of artistic flair and the sculpted steel wheels are beautiful.

Brgds
Simon

The 5J wheels I have were pressed in 1974 so that would match with what was being stated that the initial wheels were 5J and later upgraded to 5.5J. Would that be the difference between the S1 and S2 TI? Maybe it's stated in the parts book? I never knew this detailed difference before, interesting to find out. Should anybody know the colour codes of the 2 different colours that would be nice to know.

Hello Alfa Japan,
I have sent a message to Museo Storico Alfa and asked for the paint code. Fingers crossed.

Brgds
Simon

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the effort however unfortunately the archive has been out of order for several months now Apparently in a few months an online service will be available. That service, I assume, will be linked to a database of VIN numbers. Most probably questions besides VIN as we are used to ask till now will not be possible anymore

Back on topic, maybe someone has unrestored wheels of both colours? Maybe that way the colours can be found out?

I have an original s1 spare wheel which I will post a pic of... However I'd say its quite 'grey' rather like the NUM 56P wheels ...

I think that the "white"wheels may be grey that has faded in the sun as I had one of these rims with no tyre on and the inside well of the wheel rim that had never seen the sun was grey and the outside bit was "white" - to me it did not look like it had ever been painted

All of the colour press pictures and brochures also seem to show grey/silver wheels

An original spare wheel and tyre that has never been used at all would be the best way to tell - any of our S1 owners on here got one ?

Herewith pictures of my 5J wheels manufactured in May 1974. The light grey coloured one (bottom) is the appropriate colour for the S1 TI, the S2 TI I'm not sure about, that's one of the reasons to start this thread, besides the question about the 5J and 5.5J width.

The date code of the light grey coloured 5J rim states May 1974

The date code of the silver coloured 5J also states May 1974, but this rim must have had a repaint at some point in time.

The colour of the light grey 5J rim doesn't appear to be too far away from the colour on the NUM 56P rim, potentially slightly more light?

Potentially I'm annoying some people here with the amount of messages on a "simple" topic, but to be honest these kind of detailed questions I find interesting. Whilst trying to unravel the story I came a across an Internet ad for these nice steelies. These wheels are from December 1978 looking at the date stamp and appear to be be more silver coloured than grey coloured (of I have no information on whether these wheels were repainted at some point in time) and the size indication shows 5.5J. I can hardly imagine that the 5J and 5.5J wheels were used/manufactured at the same time because that would be too complex in the assembly line.

I remember seeing your grey wheel Richard when we refurbed your others, its a weird looking colour isnt it, almost as if it was unfinshed and meant to be a spare only!

Original maybe, but certainly doesnt "set the car off" as nice wheels should in my opinon

Incidentally the extra half inch of the 5.5j is all on the outside, the front of the wheel and does give them a little more dish. On appearance alone i think that they look better that way for sure.

Hi Alfa Japan,
Interesting seeing those 1978 sculpted wheels. They look un-refurbished and I would say that is the original colour. I had a 1978 series 1 1.3ti and a 1978 series two 1.5ti and my betting is that the silver you see in your picture was the original wheel colour for both. My first ever Sud was the 1.2ti in the pictures above. It was 1976 and the original wheel colour was off-white.
It definitely was not a gloss finish and not even satin finish. Somewhere between Matt and Satin. Someone will have an original wheel painted that way and this is the forum to find them.

Brgds,
Simon

Hi Alfa Japan,

Looking back through the thread, my view is that the 1974 wheel is the correct colour and your picture of the 1978 un-refurbished wheels shows the correct colour. Great detective work by you.

Very happy for someone to prove me wrong because it's good to know how the factory finished the cars.

Shrew, your wheels look great and I like the colour.

Brgds
Simon

When I have refurbished Alfasud series 1/2 wheels in the past (1977 5M and 1978 Super 4 doors) I have noticed that the original factory applied paint coating is quite thick and seems to go a bit brittle and flaky when it has aged.

This makes me wonder if the original factory applied coating might be a form of powder coat, not a sprayed liquid/acrylic type paint?

I know other Forum members are very knowledgeable about vehicle paint systems and maybe able to advise further on this question

Also, the original factory coating is as far as I remember it is not really a metallic finish as such, it seems to be an unusual cross between silver and what I would call light grey - without much (if any?) metallic particles content.

The thickness of the coating changes the way it looks on the wheel, as compared with a sprayed liquid paint, as the light reflects off it in a different way - the thinner coat leaving sharper edges. Thus the depth of coat is quite critical in my opinion as to how the finished wheel will look, hence my question above about the type of coating that was used when the cars were new. Take-away: if you want complete originality I think you need to know not just the paint colour code, but also the paint type that was used.

As far as I remember the Ti S1/2 wheels are the same colour as the various factory original 5M and Super wheels I have refurbished over the last 20 years.

Something to remember about wheel sizes is that the first series Ti from late 1973 in Continental Europe had 145 section tyres as standard and 165 tyres as an extra cost option. According to the Alfa Romeo Inspections Specifications booklet issued by the factory service department for the Alfasud there were two wheel sizes in this period for S1 4 door, S1 Ti and S1 (1286 cc) Sprint models: 4.5 J x 13 and 5J x 13. As far as I know this persisted until late 1976 when the Ti series 1 was revised with small changes including the deletion of the exhaust cut-out from the rear valance, the application of C pillar stickers and deletion of the chrome Ti badge from the boot lid. The UK market brochures I have for the revised S1 Ti do not list the 4.5J 145 x 13 wheel/tyre size and just show the 5J 165 x 13 as standard spec.

The 5.5J wheels were introduced in 1978 for the S2 Ti 1300 and 1500 and have the effect of widening the cars track slightly (front/rear) 5J = 1384/1351 mm 5.5J = 1397/1364 mm. These wheels also appeared on the Sprint 1.5 single carb model in 1978. The benefits of the wider track of the S2 cars in terms of sharper turn-in response were noted in road tests at the time. The 5.5J wheels have a noticeably wider front rim with the wheel centre recessed back giving the car they are fitted to a more purposeful look. Over the years I have seen the 5J and 5.5J Ti wheels mixed up and fitted to the same car on a number of occasions, almost as if the owner has not noticed the wheels though visually similar are actually quite different dimensionally. I imagine this might affect the handling/stability of the car concerned to some degree?

Very interesting thread here. The Spint was introduced in 1976 so I can't imagine they used the 4.5J version (however of course I'm not sure). The reasoning for the difference between the 5J and 5.5J for the S2 TI is very plausible. Since the car was from then on equipped with the black plastic body trim the difference in width makes sense, that way the wheelarches are in line with the slightly wider body. I have so far never seen 4.5J TI wheels, do they exist? Still the mystery on the factory original colour is open

The official factory service data book for Alfasud 1972-1983 definitely has the 76 Sprint listed as having 4.5J 145 x 13 wheel/tyre combo as standare spec, along with Ti, N and L.

Odd I know, especially when looked at from today's perspective where even the lowest powered city cars have 175 section or more as standard spec. But you have to remember we are talking 40 years ago now and relatively speaking the early Sud's were small capacity fairly low powered cars: 1186 - 1286 cc 63-76 bhp range.

At the time super mini's like the then newish Fiat 127 ran on tiny 135 section tyres, even for the 70 bhp Sport model - things have changed a lot in 4 decades.

What would be really great to have if anyone knows it for sure would be the RAL code or similar or the factory wheel paint together with confirmation as to the paint type. Then we can be sure of 100 percent originality when refurbishing steel wheels.

One thing to remember was that all paints were solvent based back then and even metallic colours were sometimes a one coat system. So they may have started off quite glossy and then faded with age. We all know how red cars fade. Also, quality control may not have been that strict. Batches of paint can vary in the mix.

As said with sizes, things change. No one would have thought of 18, 20 inch rims back then let alone 35,45 profile, run flat etc, etc.

Something i noticed on my 1977 ti, it has 5.5j wheels, three are tubed, one is not. anyone else got tubes?

the tubes would have been inserted to get past a leaky rim bead, or maybe someone stuck one in instead or repairing or replacing a tyre.

all sud rims were tubeless I believe, even the early ones. as long as it has the hump on the outer wheel bead area to stop the tyre rolling off then they are fine tubeless. you can still get tubeless wheels that don't have the outer hump but they are reversed wheels with a wide seat area.

Is it not a case that the wheels were painted or supplied with the colour that the supplier that the factory was NOT on stop with or was not on strike at the time?
We all know that Suds can be very different depending on who supplied the components to make one.
I.e. Ducellier MagnettI, Bosch. Weber, Dellorto Solex.
Etc etc.
It still amazes me how many brands supplied original oil filters for Suds. Badged and coloured AR but the detail is in the fine small print on the side.