Re: [FWDLK] tire'age

I had a similar experience. In 1979, I bought a 56 Olds in Los Angeles and drove it home. It came with fairly fresh Sears WWW bias-belted tires that were only a couple of years old. I just sold it last summer with the same tires on it. The tread was worn down to the replacement point, but I never had any trouble with them. They wore evenly and stayed round. They rode smooth at 70+ mph. The only one I replaced was because a king pin was worn and the tire’s inner edge wore down. I checked every year for signs of age and cracks when I cleaned the white walls, but they looked perfect and never leaked. This car was always garaged. These tires lasted 30+ years.

My 56 Dodge got new Remington bias-belted WWW tires when I got it in 1983. These tires are now 25 years old and this car is always garaged. I check every year for signs of age and cracks when I clean the white walls, but they look perfect and never leak. This year I had to replace one with the matching new spare because it finally developed a minor ply separation, causing a small bump. I think I will look for some radial WWW tires this time. But I want tires with stiff sidewalls so I don’t get mushy handling.

Dave Homstad

56 Dodge D500

-----Original Message-----
From: Forward Look Mopar Discussion List [mailto:L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Fury Jim
Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2008 10:08 PM
To: L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [FWDLK] tire'age

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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