1964 Chevy Nova (2 door) Wheel Size

[Blue_Nova64]

Hello Everyone; great site! I bought my Nova (1st car) last year, and have since become interested in restoring it a bit. Specifically, the wheels have been replaced with low-profile mags of a different size, which throws off the spedometer by around 10 mph (the difference between actual and indicated speed increases as I accelerate). I believe this problem will subside if I can find original wheels, but I don't know the original size. Help would be most appreciated. Here's a picture for your enjoyment:

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3905/1964nova3jr.jpg

[1965proSTREET]

nice lookin car!! welcome to the site, you will find tons of helpful info here!!!
those wheels in the pic, are the same ones that were on my 65 post car when i bought it...guess it was a popular wheel...I dont know what size wheel would make your speedometer correct, but i know that there is another way to fix it, i believe you can change out the gear in the transmission where the speedo screws into it...and get the correct size and it'll fix it....i think...maybe another guy can be of more help....

[72GreenRally]

Your Nova (or is it a Chevy II??) most likely had 14 inch wheels originally. Putting 14 inch wheels back on the car may not correct your speedometer problem. To get the speedometer corrected, you will need to know the gear ratio of the rearend, and the number of teeth on the drive gear in the transmission. The site http://www.tciauto.com/tech_info/speedo_gears.htm has calculators to help figure actual tire diameter, and the drive gear/driven gear combo needed to get you speedometer corrected. Once you get the right gears, installing them isn't too difficult. You should be able to do it in about an hour.

Randy (did my Nova in about an hour!);)

[nova_rookie]

This may help:

http://novaresource.org/speedo.htm

Good luck,

Mike

[acd65post]

Hey welcome to the site!!

[Blue_Nova64]

Thanks for your help everyone! Oddly, the tires are already at 14", but I believe that they are wider than normal (being low-profile mags, I suppose). So maybe it's just a broken speedometer, as I don't think that the width of the tire would affect the speedometer reading.

[Blue_Nova64]

Sorry for the double-post. I just noticed that there's a screw missing that's holding the hinge of the door on (on the driver's side), and it's going to be a pain to find out which size fits, anyone know? Thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it!

[Blue_Nova64]

Is that 13 rotations (?) per inch, or 13 inches long? I don't see how 13 inches long would fit, so I'm assuming the former.