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This goes a long way back, and, of course, it’s from an old timer.
When I started working on wheels and tires in my Navy Aviation Rating they were off Beach Craft and Super Connies (which had expander tube brakes). Almost all wheels were in two pieces and held together with bolts. When the newer wheel assemblies started to become commonplace they were cast or molded into a single unit. For simplicity the two part wheels were called wheels and the single cast unit was called a rim.
Its kind of like the plies in a tire. They used to be all cotton and the tire strength was determined by the air pressure and number of plies. Then along came polyester, nylon, steel and other combos so the rating system was born. Back in the early days we referred to any tire with an 8 ply rating as really having 4 plies. That doesn’t work anymore because of other factors. About that time acronyms were becoming popular and we had a large appendix in our maintenance manuals to refer to when an acronym stumped us.
We just have to move on in life. Today we have our computers that tell us almost everything. I’m pretty good at finding things there too.
CW
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