Deere 953 and 963 running gear wheels

jives · Jul 21, 2020

Hi folks:
I'm trying to locate wheels to fit a JD 953 or 963 running gear. The original wheels were standard 6 bolt with either 16" or 15" diameters, but the mounting face is a bit weird to fit the hub. A typical 6 bolt wheel (implement or otherwise) does not seat properly on the hub. I have also heard of spacers that can be used so that any standard 6 bolt wheel can be used. Can anyone lead me to a wheel (or two) or the proper spacers?

The 15" wheel on the left is not the proper wheel. See how the does not seat securely on the hub, leaving a space. The correct 16" wheel on the right is original. It fits perfectly on the hub -- you cannot see any space. If you click on the pics and expand them you can see how perfectly the wheel and hub fit in the right pic, and poorly in the left pic.

LouNY · Jul 21, 2020

Do you know what center hole spacing you need?
This outfit has quite a few rims, it looks like some of them have a 4 5/8" center hole;
Wheels & Rims | Tire Repair & Supplies | Workshop — Gempler's
and here you can find out most everything about rims;
Bolt Pattern Cross Reference - What Wheels Fit?

jives · Jul 22, 2020

LouNY said:
Do you know what center hole spacing you need?
This outfit has quite a few rims, it looks like some of them have a 4 5/8" center hole;
Wheels & Rims | Tire Repair & Supplies | Workshop Gempler's
and here you can find out most everything about rims;
Bolt Pattern Cross Reference - What Wheels Fit?

Thank you for the suggestion. I checked out Gemplers and other places and can easily find 6 bolt patterns with 4.5" center holes. But in reading other threads on several other forums from folks with the same problem, the typical wheel does not fit as the hub is odd. My ill-fitting rims on the front axle hubs demonstrate this. Exactly what that difference is I have not fully investigated. Perhaps that is next.

jives · Jul 22, 2020

I've gone out and made some more measurements on the non-OEM rim and the running gear hub. The hub face is 8" diameter, but the concavity of the rim only allows proper seating of something about 7.75" diameter. I can turn the rim around and the hub will fit on the convex side (not great, but better), but now the valve stem is on the inside.

I've been looking for 1/4" thick wheel spacers, with 6 bolt spacing (6" center to center), overall diameter of 7.75", center hole of 4 5/8", and bolt hole diameter of 5/8"

lightninboy · May 28, 2021

There was a time when John Deere didn't even have the parts books online for the really old running gears until 2016. My family has a 963 and a 1074.

zzvyb6 · May 28, 2021

I ran into the same problem with wheels on a 2 axle dump trailer recently. I found a wheel at a junk yard, but the bolt circle is just so slightly different that I could not run the lug bolts in. Plus the pilot hole of the hub was too big by about 1/8". Meanwhile NO trailer place had my old wheels or the lugs. I changed out the axles instead.
What had happened was the lug bolts had been tightened up probably to a torque spec, but the wheels were loose on the hub. This caused the wheels to be chewed up to the point where one came off when turning into my driveway.

Now I have studs & nuts holding essentially the same sized wheels on, much easier to mount. I suspect this hub/wheel/lug bolt combination was a major problem and a new design came along. That's why newer wheels don't fit. Try a farm junkyard if you still want to pursued the old wheel.