Question is one that has been asked thousands of times and though I've tried to understand the answers my ignorance takes first place.
I have a 69 VW Bug, stock everything in regards to suspension, beams, etc. What is the widest and tallest wheels that I can get, 17" 18", 6", 7" what? And whats the best bolt patteren with the largest selection.
You can use 17 or even 18 inch wheels on your bug if you buy wheels with the proper offset (ET) to fit the car without interference. If you are planning on keeping the stock width front beam, then you should probably limit the wheel width for the front to 6 inches. You could go as wide as 7 inches if you narrow the beam 2-3 inches and use spacers to get the wheels away from the suspension components and body. Any wheel wider than 7 inches will require wider front fenders which can be purchased from several sources.
You can can use wider wheels in the back with some minor modifications to the bump stop tower and spring plate bolts. Again, the wheel width should be around 7 inches to get them under the stock fenders. It is possible to get wheels as large as 18X10 to fit in the back, but it will require the use of wide fiberglass rear fenders and the use of thick spacers to clear the suspension as well as some grinding of the bump stop and spring plate bolts.
Most owners of German Look Bugs use Porsche Wheels with the 5X130 mm bolt pattern. This will require having your drums/rotors re-drilled to this pattern or you just buy new drums/rotors with the 5X130mm pattern.
Aftermarket wheels can be had in several different bolt patterns and many different widths and ET's. The possibilities and combinations are limitless and you could pick from thousands of different wheel/bolt pattern combinations. You have to decide on the wheel that you want, then take accurate measurements of your cars spacing requirements and set out a plan to install the wheels.
with Porsche offset wheels, you could run a 7" to 7.5" wide wheels all
around with a stock width beam and stock width fenders.
for the largest selection the 5 x 100 or 4 x 100 NEW VW & NEW HONDA
bolt patterns will get you the most selections, but to get you the most
offsets, you will need the 5 x 130 Porsche pattern (though they are limited
in selections)
