If you’ve been following MCH for a while you will know that I have shared many different methods for making deep dish wheels that have involved countless tools and a variety of processes, mainly because I love JDM and all the hellasweetness that entails.

Well today I am happy to announce that I have officially ‘Cracked the Deep Dish Code’ and have discovered a method that is not only quite easy and relatively quick but also means you are no longer limited to certain wheels or inserts! This means you can create deep dish wheels to suit whatever style you like.

Today we’ll be making BBS style wheels because let’s be honest – no other wheel insert comes close in terms of the finished look and how it contrasts against …every bloody custom Hot Wheels car you put them on! 😀

How To Make Deep Dish BBS Wheels | Preparing Your Inserts

A picture tells the story so much better than Sir Waffle-a-Lot here and so I’ll share the entire process in the following image and go through the steps in more details afterwards. *Note that the image is viewed/read left to right and top to bottom

How To Shave The Wheel Insert

I discovered the skinny wheels and realised they could be cut down easily –> In This Post Here <– and realised I could force any wheel to also be skinny – and that’s exactly what step 1 entails.

1. Take your cutting pliers and force it into the wheel from the back as if to ‘bite’ the wheel and then make the initial cut.
   Continue to cut around and as close to the wheel face as possible but note that there are 4 supports inside the wheel that will make life somewhat difficult. I find it works to jiggle the pliers back and forth as you are cutting.
2. You should now have a ‘skinny wheel’ and can attack the tyre wall with your cutting pliers – and listen carefully because this tip will save you a lot of time and energy in the long run:
3. When you are cutting the edges of the tire/plastic away you can get away with more angle than you would think. Take a look at the photo and see how the pliers flat edge is actually resting on top of the BBS insert. Granted it is only overlapping by a half a mm at best but there is still some definite overlap. This is exactly what you want because as you cut down the insert edge naturally drops away from the pliers and the cut ends up wonderfully close to the edge of the wheel.
4. In fact if you look at image 4 showing the results of my cutting you will see how close the cuts are. The one section where I didnt have enough room left to grab a good portion of plastic is clearly evident on the left where the amount of plastic left is, well it’s not exactly subtle is it.
5. If you followed the above tips then you should be left with an insert that is relatively round and has minimal ‘rubber’ left so now it’s time to do some filing. Again the image above tells the story so my only advice here is to get into a rhythm of filing and turning, turning and filing. The more even and rhythmic you can get the easier it is to produce a nice round circle.
6. Once it is even and neat we can test it on the deep dish wheel barrel we …are… about to make 😀

How To Create The Deep Dish Barrel 

This method has not changed since the very first Deep Dish wheel guide – probably never will.

The first thing you need to note is that only a certain type of wheel will work – that being the 5 spoke design that has the unique difference of not being solid. It’s a very common wheel and the image above is all you’re getting :p Now let’s make some dish…

1. Place your wheel (minus axle!) into a vice and make sure it is fairly tight in there. Note that the wheel can be ever-so-slightly mishapen and still drill fine.
2. Take an 8mm drill bit (confirm yourself obviously) and drill straight down into the wheel. Straight down!
   HINT: Start the drill at full speed and let it sit on top of the wheel for a few seconds and then gently push the drill down into the wheel, but at no stage should you feel like you are forcing the issue. Let the drill do the work basically
3. Now for the only part of this entire process that really sucks dogs balls – because we need to clean out all the gunk from the inside of the wheel including what is left of the 4 support beams that held the wheel in the first place.
4. As you can see from image 4 there is a natural step on the inside of the wheel (which is why this wheel is perfect for the task) but sitting around this insert are what is left of the 4 supports – and they are a pain to get out. My only recommendation is to cut with your scalpel across the edge of the step so you are cutting the bottom of the plastic supports and then cutting down vertically into the inside wall so you are cutting the remainder away.
   Once you have cleaned out the back you need to sand both the back and the dish itself. I wrap (medium grit) sandpaper around a smaller drill bit and use that to make the insides smooth and free of ‘imperfections’
5. Now take your Silver paint pen or ‘Sharpie’ and paint the dish. I also recommend painting around the lip because although it is chrome it is almost impossible to keep flawless throughout the process and you might find you have huge amounts of ‘gutter rash’ – and we can’t have that now
6. Insert your premade BBS insert and voila – instant deep dish BBS wheels.
   *Note that I have not coloured the outside lip in this picture and you can see the large uneven ‘gutter rash’ marks around the edge. I then painted the edges as well and the final results are, well they’re outstanding!

This last collage is a great example of the difference it makes painting the outside lip as well. You can clearly see in all three shots (especially the first one) how I have painted the front wheels lip but have yet to paint the rear. Definitely irks me every time I look at these pics.

And just for closure…

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