Network
Custom cars and trucks are the heartbeat of the automotive enthusiast scene. They are what makes the automotive world go round. If all you could do was cruise the same thing you bought right off the showroom floor day in and day out, well, that would be like a world filled with vanilla ice cream. Not that vanilla is all that bad, but there’s an entire world of flavors out there, and to not be able to taste them would just be a shame.
An entire industry has grown up and thrived during the last 70 or so years because of the drive that car and truck fans have to make their particular ride unique. Customization is the key to that growth, and few industries have seen the kind of popularity with custom vehicles like that of wheel manufacturers.
Whether it’s for an off-roader, hot rod, vintage, custom, or a musclecar, the Wheel Pros Custom Shop can do just about anything.
Whether it be a hot rod, custom, muscle car, classic, low rider, street truck, or off-roader, the wheel has always been one of the first items the owner has turned to when looking for a way to differentiate his or her ride from the one next to it. A set of great looking wheels, and even better, a set of cool custom wheels, can make a vehicle stand out from the crowd.
The Place To Go
One of those companies with a full roster of great looking wheels to fit hundreds of vehicles in every category is Wheels Pros. From brands such as American Racing, ATX, KMC, Lorenzo, Motegi Racing, Vintage Forged, to XD Series, Wheel Pros has got the automotive enthusiast market covered from A to Z. However, there’s always going to be somebody looking for something a little special, something a little different, a wheel that no other person has.
That’s where the Wheel Pros Custom Shop comes in. A small operation within the larger corporation, the Wheel Pros Custom Shop can do almost anything you want. It has the capability of producing custom offset fitments, certain coatings, paint colors, and special bolt hole patterns to order.
We can create almost any bolt pattern. – Chris Plump, Wheel Pros Custom Shop
Custom Shop Tour
Plump walked us through the custom two-piece manufacturing process. “The first step in the two-piece wheel production is we bring the barrels in to have the valve stem holes drilled or punched. At that point we will heat the barrel on a rotating table with two torches to expand the barrel. That is to allow it to fit over the wheel center.”
Barrels and centers of two-piece wheels are hand-assembled in the Wheel Pros Custom Shop, and can be ordered in 1/8-inch backspace increments to ensure a perfect fit for any application.
“Then while the barrel’s heating, we’ll have the wheel center on a specialized table that has the appropriate plates to achieve the backspacing or offset for that particular wheel order that we’re building. Once that barrel’s heated up, we place it over the center, and then allow it cool on the table which creates really tight press fit.”
“After that we take that pressed-together wheel center and barrel over to our alignment machine, where it’s checked to make sure that center is true and there’s no run out, to make sure it’s nice and square in that barrel. And then at that point we take that over and set it up on our automated welder and give it a nice bead securing that center to the barrel.”
After a barrel is punched or drilled for the valve stem it's heated by torches on a special revolving table. Then while it's hot and expanded, it's set over a wheel center on a special table that has plates designed to achieve the backspacing or offset for that custom order.
“Once that’s complete, the wheel is allowed to cool, inspected, and then it’s ready to go out to final polishing to clean the front and back of the wheel. When they come back from that final polish, we go through and check each wheel for both lateral and radial run out to make sure the wheel is true.”
“If the wheel checks out and it’s approved, we give it a final cleaning by hand, final polishing, one final inspection and then the wheel gets bagged with the run out sheet that shows the exact numbers for that wheel and then that gets put into the box ready for shipping.”
Off Road Xtreme: How many and what variety of wheels do you think the Custom Shop does in, say, a month?
Plump: “Well, it varies based on the season a bit. But if you combine all the different finishes, chrome, powderdercoat, paint, candies, etcetera, with all the possible styles and sizes and backspacing ranges it’s a lot. Everything comes through and it’s built one set at a time.”
Once a barrel and center have been pressed together, it's taken to the alignment machine to make sure the center is nice and square in the barrel. Next it's run through the automated welder and a bead is run around the inside of the wheel center to secure it to the barrel. 
“We build anything from the basic two-piece polished wheels to, as you saw, wheels with painted centers, some wheels with chrome centers, and any possible combination of chrome barrels with painted centers. We do a pretty big variety of wheels any given day during any given week. It definitely makes it interesting because it’s always something new coming through. “
ORX: “Wheel Pros Custom Shop does wheels for street trucks, hot rods, customs, off-roaders, and even custom wheels for one-off restorations?”
Initial cleanup is done off-site after assembly, then when the wheels come back, they are inspected. If they pass, they are checked again on an alignment machine for lateral and radial runout, final hand cleaning and polishing is done, and they are wrapped, bagged, and boxed with their run out sheets for shipping. 
Plump: “We’ll do everything from specials for musclecar restorations to custom painted beadlock wheels for off-roaders, to large diameters for the pro touring segment wheels with big brake clearance, and even more modern designs.”
“We’re starting to see a lot more variety in the types of vehicles that we’re putting wheels on these days. It’s not just your typical hot rod anymore. It could be a brand new 2015 Corvette to a ’32 Ford to a 1970 Bronco with beadlocks.”
“We also have a forged beadlock wheel program for some of the race teams, including Bryce Menzies who we special drill blanks for based on what his truck needs. For the race teams’ setup, we’ll build those and paint or powder coat them depending on need.”
We also have a forged beadlock wheel program for some of the race teams … – Plump
ORX: “We saw the mill in operation drilling special bolt patterns when we toured the Wheel Pros Custom Shop.”
Plump: “We use that for drilling bolt patterns in the wheels based on what the customer may need. A lot of what we do now is start with a blank we call ‘center with no bolt pattern.’ We have flexibility in that we can drill the wheels for pretty much any vehicle that’s on the road today, be it a metric pattern for a new Camaro or new Cadillac to a wide five-lug pattern for an old truck or one of the race teams.”
A computer-programmed mill machine is used to custom drill any bolt pattern a customer wants in any of the rims the Wheel Pros Custom Shop offers.
“We can create almost any bolt pattern. Depending on the wheel style and the spoke design, we can drill the wheel with everything from three-lug to eight-lug. That day we were drilling one of our new AX 757’s, which is the ATX Chamber Pro II beadlock wheel. That’s one of our new wheels for the off-road segment. It’s a true beadlock wheel.
ORX: “How much feedback do you get from racers and how does that help with development?”
Plump: “The feedback that we do receive helps us adjust the way the wheel is built, if there’s issues with say, beadlock rings. We have recessed the bolts on a lot of our new beadlock styles based on feedback from the drivers about exposed bolt heads getting damaged. We’ve tried to make the wheels stronger and as light as possible for their strength.”
ORX: “Except for the very super custom jobs, what’s the average lead time from when a customer calls in the order to when something ships?”
We watched as one of the new ATX AX 757 Chamber Pro II beadlock wheels was custom drilled for a special order. 
Plump: “We do have a standard build timeframe that we’ll quote for our custom two-piece wheels. Generally, the build time is between four to six weeks from the time the order is placed to when the wheels are shipped. There are always going to be exceptions, depending on how elaborate the painting and chroming of the wheel is, and various things like that, but generally speaking, we hold it about four to six weeks.”
ORX: “One last thing. What’s the craziest order you’ve ever seen come through the shop? You know, one that had you sitting there at your desk and thinking … huh?”
Plump: “We’ll do what ever the customer wants us to do as long as it’s within our parameters. We do a lot of custom paint these days and we’re really proud of the fact that we tell people that we can paint any of our wheels any color imaginable. “
“As long as the customer provides us a paint code or a certain idea they have in mind, we’ll work with them to come up with some pretty crazy colors and we’ve been doing a lot of pink and a lot of purple powdercoated wheels lately. Those are not exactly colors you would normally think of being popular, but we’ve been doing quite a bit of that.”
Among the huge inventory the Custom Shop keeps are stacks of blanks (housed for race teams such as that of off-road competitor Bryce Menzies) that it drills on-site to fit specific applications when the order comes in.
“We’ve also done a lot of really flashy paint match colors for some of our wheels. Be it a tangerine center with a chrome barrel, we’ve done two-tones and three-tones. We really won’t turn anything away, if it’s what the customer wants to make them happy, we’ll provide that service.”
“It may not be what we would put on our personal vehicles, but that’s the good thing about it, everyone’s got their individual tastes and individual style, and we like to cater to that.”
Bright colors have never been a problem for the crew at the Custom Shop, as can be plainly seen by these two KMC wheels we found in the warehouse. Plumb said they will work with a customer on almost anything as long as they have a color code or a certain idea in mind.
Last Word
The Wheel Pros Custom Shop’s lightweight and sturdy, made-in-the USA, forged one- and two-piece styles are created to order in California. Custom fitments are its specialty; building two-piece styles to order in custom backspacing dimensions of 1/8-inch increments to deliver the perfect fit to your vehicle, whether it be a hot rod, classic, custom, vintage, street truck, or off-roader.
As Chris Plump explained, the Wheel Pros Custom Shop can do almost anything. Its crew can create a personalized look by offering a wide range of finishes that include an extensive library of paint colors, powdercoats, tinted clearcoats, as well as vehicle color matching. And its drill-from-blank services can take care of customers with hard-to-fit vehicles, and the special drilling is done in-house.
One of the hottest new items from the Custom Shop is this VF498 (left) from the Vintage Forged line (this particular one set with the new Titanium painted center and Satin Black barrel) for Pro-Touring builds. Another awesome job by the Custom Shop was this American Racing Hopster with its center painted Torq Thrust Gray (right), perfect for the musclecar crowd.
