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Posted by Keith in Washington on Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 11:16:47 :
In Reply to: tire size and safty posted by older copey on Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 06:06:47 :
Look again. The 5.50 inch rims with the narrower lock ring was standard on the ffPW as was the 6.50 inch with the wider lock ring. The ffPW also came with 2 different tire sizes. Gee I wonder if that has something to do with it.
The 5.5 inch rim with the narrow lock ring was used on ffPW with 7.50 X 16 tires. These trucks had a ration of 4.89. This combination is not as common on ffPW from what I have seen.
The 6.50 inch rim with the wider lock ring was the most common found on the ffPW. It is designed for the 9.00 X 16 tire and trucks so equipped had a 5.83 ratio.
Looking at the Michelin tires. Both the 9.00 and the 11.00 x 16 are designed for a 6.50H rim which is exactly what the 6.50 ffPW rim is. The Michelin listed the 6.50H rim as the correct rim for their tires on their web site. Even Crusty Old Tire Man (COTM) would agree with that. His problem with the Michelins was that most of the ones that people had were military surplus and that those tires exceeded the 6 year life on the tires and he was very strict that those should be tossed (but he was an***al in his following of the "book"). Either the 9.00 and 11.00 X 16 tires are correct for the 6.50H ffPW rim. I run 9.00 X 16 Michelin XL tires on my 51 ffPW and 9.00 X 16 Michelin ZXL tires on my WC53 Carryall. Interesting is that I never had to balance the XL combat rim combination on the Carryall as there is absolutely no vibration at any speed up to 90 MPH (yes the Carryall with do 90 MPH).
It is not recommended that the 7.50 be mounted on the 6.50H rim nor should the 9.00 X 16 be mounted on the 5.50 rim. It can be physically done but the tire will not be seated on the rim correctly and problems can happen.
Other tires. Other modern tires are much wider and require a wider rim than the 6.50H rim. Denman makes or made the Coyote tire which looks great but requires a larger rim. There are still other tires out there such as the spur grip and others. VPW sells some of them. You can still find some Q78 16 tires which if I remember correctly can be mounted on the 6.50 rim. There are still some 7.50 and similar sized tires out there for the 5.50 rim.
I am personally tempted to have some custom rims made for a set of highway treads. I suspect that if I could take a 17 or 20 inch rim designed for a dualy (to get the offset needed) that has not been center drilled for the hub and lug nuts, I could get a nice looking rim for a wider modern tire. I will not be cheap. I would like to get a set of Alcoa rims which means lots of money.
A source of information on tires and rims is at Garbee's web page.
Rims: http://www.garbee.net/~cabell/riminfo.htm
Tires:
http://www.garbee.net/~cabell/riminfo.htm
http://www.garbee.net/~cabell/tirechoices.htm
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