Dual Wheel Adapters

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UPDATE: See more information on the Rapport, Flox Foy, and Welliver adapters here.

I’ve spent the past couple days working through the selective hub relationships between Free-Lock (Denver, CO), Dualmatic (Longmont, CO), Husky (Longmont, CO), White Manufacturing (Colorado Springs, CO), and Cutlas Tools & MFG (Vinton, IA). During that process, I ran across more information about dual wheel adapters for the jeep. I thought it might be worth listing the one’s that have been documented. Perhaps someone has more information??

1. Max Rappaport’s hubs: A patent on these hubs was filed in 1947 (awarded in 1953), making them the earliest known hubs. Max Rapportaport was the President of Northwestern Auto Parts Company (aka NAPCO).

Here is an example of them:

This December 1947 NAPCO ad promoted the hubs:

This July 1948 Popular Mechanics ad might be advertising the same dual wheels, but rebranded as “Du All” Converters. The design looks very similar to the Rapport models:

2. Welliver Jeep Dual Adapters No. 3000: These adapters were available by 1949 and sold by the Welliver Machine Shop. This April 1949 ad from Popular Mechanics provides a documented date.

Thanks to Stefano Oddo, we have this brochure regarding these adapters:

3. Hickey Dual Adapters: Vic Hickey developed his higher compression head, giving jeeps a power upgrade option. Then, he designed a set of dual wheel adapters. The first documentation I could find on his adapters was this July 1952 article in Popular Science about his hubs.

The next month, this ad appeared in the August 1952 issue of Popular Science:

1952-08-popular-science-hickey-dual-dually-adapters

This Photobucket page has some good close up photos of the Hickey adapters.

4. Dualmatic Dual Adapter Hubs: These hubs have a center piece that gives them a different appearance. They were likely sold sometime around 1960-1961 time period.

This ad from the September 1961 issue of Popular Mechanics is the earliest documentation I have of these hubs.

Popular Mechanics published a short blurb on them in August of 1962.

5. Unknown Adapters: Anyone recognize these? Roger has a set for sale similar to these unknown adapters.
Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3: Roger had this set for sale

6. Floy Fox Dual Wheel Adapter Patent: First applied for in 1979, it’s not clear if this was designed for a jeep-sized rim or not. Here are some images from this patent (https://www.google.com/patents/US4473258)

7. Ricka Duo-wheel Adapters: this was designed more for trucks than jeeps. An ad for it appeared for several months during 1977 in Popular Science.

8. Hanks Adapters: Hank machined a set of adapters You can Learn more about them here. If I had to guess, I’d say these were based on the Hickey adapters.

11 Comments on “Dual Wheel Adapters”

Pascal April 5, 2017 at 7:31 am

Very great post Dave. Lot of informations.

Bill April 5, 2017 at 9:24 am

Nice info, Dave! I have a set of the Hickey’s… now I just need to find a good Jeep to use them on.

Bill

Bob April 5, 2017 at 10:03 am

This is good info…these are just as rare as can be around here.

Ted Jordan April 5, 2017 at 2:51 pm

Great stuff Dave , over the years Ive managed to acquire a few sets of the Rappaports and one set of the Wellivers. The Wellivers are nice in the fact that they can be used on the front of a Jeep as well as the rear , although not very road friendly. The key to using them on the front is to install an inner wheel and tire thats just a tad bit taller than outer wheel and tire to help in steering and wear and tear. The spacer and tube type (unknown example) can also be made to fit front or back. I had an original set of these not sure what brand and have had a good friend on mine machine a few sets that came out really nice and were posted awhile back on your site. You can find cool examples of some of these in the old Jeep part catalogs such as Bergs, Kings, Montgomery Ward , Sears to name a few. As always thanks for all the great info Dave !!!