Well, in the past few years, a wheel was introduced which mimics fairly closely the look of the original Minilite, but with a modern spin. It is also much more economical than a set of Panasports. Despite the low cost, I've seen enough sets on other owners cars that appear to have served them well and given no problems.
With cost out of the way, I decided to get a set. Father's day helped fund the project and off I went.
One major detail about the Konig Rewind and any 15x7 wheel on a TR6 is that they normally require spacers on the front to prevent the wheel from rubbing the suspension where the upright hits the upper ball joint and upper A-arms. A 15x6 will not do this, but I've not found a 15x6 Konig Rewind. There are two problems with running spacers - you need longer studs, and you will get outer fender rub!
My friend Keith has a set of the 15x7 Konigs on his car, and he had already gone through the modifications necessary to make his car eliminate the rubbing. He gave me some photos which showed what needed to be done and helped out with parts too.
Basically, the upper suspension area needs some heavy mods to eliminate the rub points, and you need a larger steering turn stop. The larger steering turn stop reduces your turn circle slightly, but I really have not been bothered by it too much yet.
For the upper ball joint area, I used my angle grinder and simply ground away anything that rubbed. After the work was done, I repainted everything to prevent rust and considered it done. This really took 3 tries on the driver's side, and 1 try on the passenger. As you can see, at full stop in reverse, there still is not a lot of room. This photo was taken before the oversized steering stop was fitted though.
The Steering stop is pretty simple. Unbolt the old one and bolt in the new one. Sourcing one is not so easy though. Keith had gotten two sets and gave me the largest set he got as he had not used it. Its to the far right in this photo (photos below are Keith's photos)
With all that work done, I'm very happy. The car drives extremely well. I'm a firm believer in the idea that you don't know how bad something is until you have something better- well, my old wheels must have been nearly egg shaped. Gone completely are the interstate vibrations and shakes that I felt at certain speeds. Everything is smooth as can be.
I'll get more 'good' photos later.
