THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

Hello,

We have located the manufacturer of the original Pinzgauer rims. He still has the old molds to fabricate the rims. He's willing, depending of the order to change the molds over so that he can be producing tubeless rims. Of course these rims will be exactly like the old ones but will be specifically build for tubeless tires. They will not be any larger as the original ones !!
I understand that the Dollar versus the Euro is right now not in your favor but maybe there are a few of you that would love to keep the standard look and rims of their Pinzgauer. Maybe we can do a group order and ship an entire palette or more by freight. The price right now need still to be determined as it all depends of the total quantity ordered.
If there is any interest in these rims, please drop me a line.

Thank you beforehand,

Best regards,

Jacques

I'd be interested in 5 depending on the price. Thanks.

Paul

Thank you Paul,

I am taking note of your desire (price depending) for 5 rims. Someone from Canada is also interested. Maybe we can get enough people interested for those rims to be priceworthy. We are also checking the entire European Pinzgauer community. Due to them and their technical inspection rules we have to keep the rims as close as possible to the original. They will not be widened but simply provided with a bead to allow the use of tubeless tires.
Maybe we could get Expedition Imports or SDP to ship them in one of their containers?

Regards,

Jacques

If you can get them to our warehouse in Belgium I would be happy to get them stateside free of charge. (Albeit you will have to pay the duty if any...) One thing to keep in mind is that as they are NEW manufacture automotive they will need a DOT certification. However, if they were agricultural tractor rims that requirment would not apply........

Are you sure you cannot convince them to manufacture in a 8" width? That is where I think you would garner the most interest stateside.

In regards to tubeless on the stock rim.....Here in the states we have been running them that way since the late 1990's with no problems whatsoever. Are you experiencing problems with the stock wheels?

Cheers,

Scott

ExpeditionImports wrote: Are you sure you cannot convince them to manufacture in a 8" width? That is where I think you would garner the most interest stateside.

Hello Scott,

Thank you for your answer and your very generuous offer and there is no problem to get them to your Belgium Warehouse. Any other help from our side is also offered to you.

As for 8" wide rims - we understand that these would be the rims that most of the people would "love" to have. However, we anticipate that most people interested in those rims will be in Europe and the laws are very strict here. We cannot use any other rims, except for the original ones unless we get an approval from Steyr Puch for another rim. They are not willing to provide us such an approval for anything else then what was originally designed for the Pinzgauer - with one exception: tubetype to tubeless is no problem if the rims are being build by the original manufacturer.

A DOT certification will be hard to get as the original ones do not have one and the Pinzgauer was originally not build/intended for the US market.

As for running tubeless on the original rims. We do not do that, as it is forbidden by law. In case of an accident, the insurance company will not pay for the costs and the owner will have to pay for everything if he was driving without inner tubes on his rims. However, we have noticed that sometimes, due to the inner tube and while driving thru sand and rocks in Marocco/Algeria/Tunisia and Lybia the torque would sometimes have a tendency to spin the tire on the rim and therefor thear the inner tube up.

Hope this answered a few questions and of course I am more then willing to help with more answers. Should you need other items we might be of assistance to our great Pinzgauer owners accross the big pond.

Best Regards,

Jacques

hello Jacques,

Just curious how many European Countries have such draconian Laws covering the width of wheels? I can imagine that Germany and Austria, possibly Belgium and Luxembourg but what of the rest. Its just that in GB which is part of the European Union albeit kicking and struggling has no such directive. Custom rims are available for practically any aplication except unfortunatly the Volvo C300 TGB series. In essence if any one wanted 10" rims in GB there would be no legal impediment other than for quality and would it technically fit without problem. No doubt GB will catch up it is already happening with all sorts of laws covering almost every aspect of motering.

Could manage five! Let me know costs. Thanks,

Rick

This should probably be a different thread, but since you guys are on the subject, here goes.

Why do you have such restrictive laws in Europe? Is it because you all are more heavily populated or some of the cities still have older narrower roads? That doesn't make sense since the autobahn/freeway was invented there.

Next question; is there nothing you can do to influence your powers that be to change some of these things or do you pretty much have to accept what is dished out?

I ask, because I often wonder, if we, on this side of the pond, won't find ourselves in a similar situation before too long. An example would be what is going on in the state of Wisconsin now.

Sorry to interrupt, but I'm curious.

Andy

Andy,

All countries have rules and regulations covering vehicles. However some European countries have a very strict interpretation of how that should be implemented. There are general agreements with all European states and they have consultative committees and bodies that advise the European parliament on technical specification. In fact most countries world wide have profesionals advising these commities. Eventually throughout the whole of the EEC a set rules will aply across the union and in many instances this is the case. To some extent it is also the situation in the US many legal requirements are respected across the pond between the US and Europe and many other countries. Any way back to Europe, these recommendations can become law and then they are ratified with the verious governments pre-existing rules and regulations prior to becoming part of the EEC and it can be a slow process getting every one on board as there are bound to be disagreements about specific requirements. For example many of your lighting codes are similar to those adopted else where and vise a verse but occasionally the US and the EEC cannot agree, like the colours in the rear lamp cluster for instance or the watage of certain bulbs.

In Germany and a few other EEC countries everything is standardised by I think the TUV, basically if somthing is not covered by that body then it cannot be used, the TUV is very comprehensive and exact and allows for little interpretation it is very thorough. In GB we adopt by agreement much that has been ratified by the EEC but we have our own internal body and not the TUV we have VOSA and you have DOT. VOSA has its own pre existing rules and regulations an many of the new EEC directives only apply to cars from a certain date or new cars. As we go back in time to the first cars it is perfectly legal to drive them here in GB without all of the other stuff like direction indicators seat belts etc. As we progress to something like the Pinzgauer and TGB a few more requirements have to be adopted but only commensurate with there respective age. Emissions are less strict for old vehicles that new and so on.

It can be very complex but it can not be assumed that all EEC states sing from exactly the same book.

Countries in the EEC that does not allow another size/width of the rims are:

Austria
Switzerland
Germany
Belgium
Luxembourg
France (they even have to paint over the military color)

Italy and Spain => I don't know???

But this covers nearly 95 % of the Pinzgauer owners in the EEC

Regards,

Jacques

Anthony, thanks, I understand about DOT, EPA, and even state DOTs, and having to have regulations etc. It is just that from my side of the fence it looks like, even as silly as ours are sometimes, you all have it a bit tougher without the chance (freedom?) to be a little more indivudaul. Thanks, now back to your regulailyr scheduled program.



Andy