hotrod180 wrote:Siliflexer, I'm curious what wheels you currently have?
You can look up the p/n of the components of the 199-62 cleveland kit,
if you have the correct p/n wheels, & rotors, all you need are torque plates & calipers.
Might be quite a little bit cheaper just to get those parts, vs buying a complete kit.

FWIW the 199-62 kit uses:
40-75D wheel
164-036 rotor
30-52 brake assembly
consisting of the 075-01500 torque plate & the 091-021 caliper assembly

The early airplanes had C163001-0103 or 40-97A wheels that are not compatible with double puck brakes. A complete conversion is the only option (legally) and given how I use the airplane it would be foolish to think that the 76 year old wheels are going to continue to without catastrophic consequences. Which of the new options would you choose?

I think since you're starting from scratch with all-new stuff, I'd say just go for the 10".
Looks like ABI kit is $7136, Grove is $4599. Both appear to be STC'd.
I'm pretty old school and would lean toward the ABI (Cleveland),
but the savings with the Grove kit is pretty attractive.

Tires: a buddy of mine runs the shaved 29x10 airhawks, and they are massive (IMHO not in a good way).
Heavy & draggy, they wouldn't be my choice.
I'd suggest the 850-10 aero classic smoothies, but I'm having trouble googling them up, so maybe they're out of production?
My other choice would be the 850x10 air trac.

The Grove rim takes a tubeless tire, I believe the Bushwheel rim requires a tube, unless you are running a Bushwheel.
DENNY

As of August 2026

Bushwheels 29” heavy tread $4900
Abi wheels/brakes $4850 26.8lbs
Goodyear 8.50 6 $535 15 lbs
Tube $218 3lbs
Desser Smoothies 8.50x6 $371
Extra wheels $2900 new

Grove 10” wheels/brakes16.9lbs $5100
8.50x10 $407. 26lbs
29” $929
$5914 total plus brake lines
Extra wheel set $3800

The 8.50x10 weight that you listed (26) is incorrect, if we’re talking about the aeroclassic smoothie, VSE 31334. I know that’s what their website says but it’s wrong. The smooth 8.50x10s are around 20 pounds each. For comparison, their website says the VSE 31331 (29x11x10) are 24 pounds….this is accurate. The 29s are definitely heavier than the 8.50x10s, the “26” is a typo. The grove tubeless setup with 8.50x10 smoothies is 37 lbs per side, 74 total. 29s is 41 a side, 82 total.

This is great info, thank you for the weight data.