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RBLyon
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 8:18 pm    Post subject: Zwitter wheels Reply with quote

What would the correct date stamp be for the wheels on an 11-52 zwitter?
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janerick3
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:18 pm    Post subject: Re: zwitter wheels Reply with quote

RBLyon wrote:
What would the correct date stamp be for the wheels on an 11-52 zwitter?


Could be as early as 3/52, with bolted-on hubcap clips.
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zwitter53
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 4:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi

My december 1952 Zwitter has wheels from april 1952, se picture:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=219148

Tomas
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RBLyon
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 6:56 am    Post subject: zwitter wheels Reply with quote

Thank you fot the information.The wheels on my car had been replaced with 3-53 wheels.
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Zwitter
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 9:47 am    Post subject: zwitter wheels Reply with quote

Tomas,

04/52 Lemmerz wheels! The better quality welded rim, VS the riveted style.

Interesting to find how far in advance VW was gearing up change-over parts production. At least 6 months in advance of the Zwitter introduction.
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Bruce
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 11:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Makes you wonder where they stored the nearly ½ million wheels during that time lag.
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Zwitter
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bruce,
1/2 million wheels AND all the rest of the stockpile of waiting updated parts.
VW's suppliers must have had some tremendous storage capacity!
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've never checked the date on my 10\52 zwitter wheels, but I do know that the speedometer is dated 9\52. Why would they have started making 15 inch wheels 6 months in advance? And if that's the case, what the hell is so important about having wheel dates that match your car since they would most likely not have been on your car to start with.

Dave
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 2:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

D. Haviland wrote:
I've never checked the date on my 10\52 zwitter wheels, but I do know that the speedometer is dated 9\52. Why would they have started making 15 inch wheels 6 months in advance? And if that's the case, what the hell is so important about having wheel dates that match your car since they would most likely not have been on your car to start with.

Dave


Who said it s important to have rim dates match the car? I think 1-4 months earlier is a good target for just about everything, wheels, speedos, generators, semaphore, D regs, etc...
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ZwitterND
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Having a zwitter I find threads like this to be the most interesting. Sure I would love to have a "real" split and hopefully will one day. However I have come to the belief that zwitters represent VW's 2nd big step toward becoming a world class automobile manufacturer and threads like this help us to see how the process unfolded.
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kafer53
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was just going to post this same exact question regarding the rims for my March 1953 zwitter. I just now picked them up after taking off the old rubber and began giving them a close look over. I mean I just did this now and put them in my shed after looking at them. Really cool, these zwitter threads are really good.

My rims are marked exactly the same with Lemmerz 4J x 15 however, I have two rims marked 1/53 and two marked 4/52. I guess this is ok after reading this thread as they are all 15 inch and the same brand Confused
There also seems to be a small DIN stamping visable on the rim. Does anyone know what this means?

I'll post some pics off my cell phone camera asap.
Paul
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Last edited by kafer53 on Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
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D. Haviland
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

johnshenry wrote:
D. Haviland wrote:
I've never checked the date on my 10\52 zwitter wheels, but I do know that the speedometer is dated 9\52. Why would they have started making 15 inch wheels 6 months in advance? And if that's the case, what the hell is so important about having wheel dates that match your car since they would most likely not have been on your car to start with.

Dave


Who said it s important to have rim dates match the car? I think 1-4 months earlier is a good target for just about everything, wheels, speedos, generators, semaphore, D regs, etc...

My point was, what's the point in even trying to match the dates on your rims. I don't think the guy in charge of pulling rims out of the pile of a million even gave two shits whether or not the rim dates matched. Hence, it seems to me that every VW ever made should not have matching rim dates. At least not all 4.
Dave
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kafer53
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

[quote="D. Haviland"]
johnshenry wrote:
D. Haviland wrote:
I've never checked the date on my 10\52 zwitter wheels, but I do know that the speedometer is dated 9\52. Why would they have started making 15 inch wheels 6 months in advance? And if that's the case, what the hell is so important about having wheel dates that match your car since they would most likely not have been on your car to start with.

Dave


Who said it s important to have rim dates match the car? I think 1-4 months earlier is a good target for just about everything, wheels, speedos, generators, semaphore, D regs, etc...

My point was, what's the point in even trying to match the dates on your rims. I don't think the guy in charge of pulling rims out of the pile of a million even gave two shits whether or not the rim dates matched. Hence, it seems to me that every VW ever made should not have matching rim dates. At least not all 4.

Good call Dave. As long as they are not dated after my cars date of production, I wouldn't care if they are all the same or not.
Paul
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

D. Haviland wrote:
johnshenry wrote:
D. Haviland wrote:
I've never checked the date on my 10\52 zwitter wheels, but I do know that the speedometer is dated 9\52. Why would they have started making 15 inch wheels 6 months in advance? And if that's the case, what the hell is so important about having wheel dates that match your car since they would most likely not have been on your car to start with.

Dave


Who said it s important to have rim dates match the car? I think 1-4 months earlier is a good target for just about everything, wheels, speedos, generators, semaphore, D regs, etc...

My point was, what's the point in even trying to match the dates on your rims. I don't think the guy in charge of pulling rims out of the pile of a million even gave two shits whether or not the rim dates matched. Hence, it seems to me that every VW ever made should not have matching rim dates. At least not all 4.
Dave


I disagree. Rim lots were probably delivered in very large lots, thousands I'd bet. All made in the same production run. VW was making about 7400 splits a month in 1950, thats nearly 30,000 rims.

I don't think that Lemmerz or Kronnenprinz had any reason to "shuffle" production lots, nor would VW have had reason to when they received them. Its not like Lemmerz or Kronnenprinz would have taken 2-4 months of production, dumped them in a big pile, mixed them up, then pulled out a bunch and stacked them for a trip to the VW plant.

It is highly likely that most rims in a production lot delivered to the lines were of the same date code, or maybe 2 date codes (and as such, one car built from that lot would have some of each date).

Sure, some cars left the line with mismatched dates, but it seems that the vast majority would have all had the same dates given the production build volumes we are talking about (both rim builds at KP and Lemmerz as well as VW car builds). JMO....
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kafer53
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 2:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here are a few pics taken today of my rims taken off my 53 zwitter. I'll take a shot of the 4/52 marking asap. It was a bit harder to see with the paint covering it. Two rims are marked 1/53 and the other two 4/52.
Paul

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


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D. Haviland
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I guess it would mostly be zwitters with way out of wack dates since they were making wheels for them at least 9 months in advance. Why were they making zwitter rims 9 month in advance and split rims so much closer to car production?

Dave
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ProjectX
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My October '53 oval has 3/53 wheels on it, so it continued into '53 even. As mentioned earlier, they must've made HUGE batches of wheels in this period.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What I have learned restoring my zwitter is throw "chrono-logic" out the split window. My zwitter was made 11/52 that I purchased from the original owner. Recently I had the external door handles re-chromed. In the process they damaged the cam knob on the barrel. I was in the process of purchasing a new barrel form Gabriel, I noticed it was different from mine, sent him pictures & part #'s and he said that I had door handles from 1951...wha da? I have come to the resolve that zwitters, were made from a lot of NOS ....a nice word for leftovers. I would suspect some parts were "blems" or "re-worked". I have worked in a factory for 30 years, not the first time I have seen this done. So it would not surprise me to see different mfg / dated wheels on a zwitter.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ZwitterND wrote:
...... I was in the process of purchasing a new barrel form Gabriel, I noticed it was different from mine, sent him pictures & part #'s and he said that I had door handles from 1951.......

Do you still have those pics? I'd like to see this oddity.
Did your old handle use a "Y" type key?

Is there anyone with a car from these years who has wheels dated within 1 month of the car's birth?

This is a very strange topic. If you do the math, from the time the wheels were made to the time they were installed on a car, VW made close to 90,000 cars. If the wheel makers made all these wheels 7-8 months in advance, that means they were storing about 450,000 wheels. These things are NOT small, can you imagine the size of the warehouse? Kinda hard to believe, isn't it? Then, we must assume VW wasn't filled with completely incompetent people. Wouldn't someone say, "hey we're getting kinda backed up with wheels here, shouldn't we slow down a bit?"
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe they just kept stamping 4/52 for a long time... then got back on track in 1/53.

In the Barndoor Bus 16" wheel thread, the same gap exists.
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