i had a 49 Kaiser with 29xxx orig miles, and a set of tires bought at sears
in 1956 [had the receipt] which were Denman 9.00 x 15s huge skins
with a peculiar tread design, just 9 solid rows, no breaks, anyway it was stored
in 56 with its new tires with enough bricks to keep only a footprint of the tire
in touch with the ground as they lost air over the years.... we pulled her out
of the garage in '96 after airing the tires up...
they had flat spots from having contacted the garage floor for about 40-41
years, and they'd synchronize once in a while and made for a little rough
riding..... so..... 1 at a time, after chocking 3 wheels, i jacked up the driven
wheel till the flat spot just touched the ground, let the clutch out in 2nd, and
a little at a time dropped the car about 1/16 to 1/8' at a time, about 15 min
per wheel [and a little dip in the driveway] all 4 tires were "lathed" down to
roundness..... i drove on the tires for about 10 yrs which included a motor swap
from the flat 6 to a buick 3.8 :) and traded the car a good 4-5 years ago....
last summer i saw it in CT [2.5 hrs from me] with the same tires, and even a
youtube video of it flamethrowing and burning out on the '56 or older
denmans...
i just put a pair of cordovan 3-stripe tires on chrome reverse rims on the
rear of my 41 plymouth with a 500" motor in it... we'll see how they do.... NOS
from '66
all in all it seems that all the tire nightmares apply to 80's and newer
tires.... i ran a set of 4 silvertowns [7.50 x 14] on my 59 fury- daily driving
for about 10,000 miles... the fronts were still good but the rears were down to
the cords from too many smoke shows.... i dont know what they were rated to
but they stayed together up to about 125-130mph [which i think was about
5500 points-bouncing rpm for the speedo games with a 3.23
suregrip]
the alpha-numeric coker classics are a pretty god tire too... they look
right, and at 25psi out back can handle about a 1/2 throttle launch in my 440'd
plymouth
have fun, its getting warmer every day!
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