Guest wittenborn Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Some people say you can't use radial tires on non radial rims. I've never had any trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alsancle Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Yeah, but they look like totally wrong on a car that was supposed to have bias ply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kingoftheroad Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Some people say you can't use radial tires on non radial rims. I've never had any trouble.I've never heard of non-radial rims till it was mentioned here. I've never had any problems swapping bias to radial or vice versa any any given set of rims either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Skyking Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 I've been running radials on my '62 Buick for 22 years, and over 30,000 miles. No problems..................! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Old48Truck Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 1. There's no such thing as "radial rims."2. The handling and ride on my '48 Chevy pickup improved tremendously with radial tires. I'd be willing to bet that all antique vehicles would have been sold with radial tires as standard equipment, had they been available at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starfireelvis Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 Have two complete sets of five tires, one radial and one bias-ply (which I basically only put on for the Hershey show); have never had any problems with one or the other, and I know they're not "radial" rims or "bias" rims--all are from a '62 Oldsmobile (and come to think of it, I put a set of radials that used to be on my Starfire onto my '62 Dynamic 88 wagon, and had no problem there, either... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 "Yeah, but they look like totally wrong on a car that was supposed to have bias ply." X2Bernie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kingoftheroad Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 Radials may alter the vehicles look slightly but I agree with Old48Truck, my old car drives SO NICE & SMOOTH on radials..As a matter of fact, my old Buick on radials drives so much better then my much newer daily driver ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Skyking Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 "Yeah, but they look like totally wrong on a car that was supposed to have bias ply." X2BernieI would agree with that on my Metropolitans but for some reason, not on my Buick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alsancle Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 Radials may alter the vehicles look slightly but I agree with Old48Truck, my old car drives SO NICE & SMOOTH on radials..As a matter of fact, my old Buick on radials drives so much better then my much newer daily driver !Depends on the particular tire but in general they stand out like a sore thumb. I will not disagree that most cars ride better with radials. But, most antiques will run and drive better with a modern crate engine in them too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buicknutty Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I have a '56 Roadmaster that I've run radials on for nearly 30 years, as I drive it considerably and it drives so much nicer. For me the difference in appearance outweighs the driving advantages.Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kingoftheroad Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I guess it depends on your preference and what you intend to use the car for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleach Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 There's more road noise when running radials. I also disagree with that the ride is better with radials. I've always noticed cars were smoother riding on bias-ply which is also why the ride is quieter with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D Yaros Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I have radials on my 62 Olds, and bias ply on my 55 Cad. Yes, bias ply are indeed quieter. And, yes, radials do track far, far better than bias ply.I cannot picture what a wide white wall radial would look like on my Caddy. She came to me with bias ply. At the same time I prefer the look of the radials on m 62 Olds.This is one of those discussions where there is no right/wrong answer ... . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novaman Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 The differance in rims isn't something you'd see. The radial tires put more side load on the rim when turning. Some of the older rims will handle the stress, some won't. If you are losing hubcaps when you corner, put bias ply tires on which will relieve the side load on the rim and you'll magicaly stop losing hubcaps. The other option would be to get rims from a new car that came with radials and again you'll stop losing hubcaps.The other rim issue is tube or tubeless. There it is a case of construction. If there is a non-welded seam between the inner and outer bead lips of the rim, it is suspect to to leaking air. That why you need the tube. Yes, you might get lucky and it hold air, but do you really want to chance it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NTX5467 Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 This discussion has been had a while back. There has been mention of the earlier rims cracking over time, which can result in a sudden loss of air pressure. It seems like the issue is not as prevalent on welded-rim steel wheels rather than riveted-rim steel wheels?Wheel flex can happen even with bias ply tires. We have a '66 Chrysler with 14x5.5" factory wheels on it. The rh front wheel cover would turn in the wheel, until the valve stem stopped it. There were tabs on the rim surface and similar tabs on the outer edge of the wheel cover to limit the movement, but they didn't seem to work well. Upgrading to the same year of New Yorker wheel cover and also removing the valve stem extension on that particular wheel helped prevent the valve stem being damaged. When I put 14x6.5" wheels on my '67 Chrysler, it had no flex problems, but then the 14x5.5" wheels that car came with didn't have the movement issue either.Originallly, radial tires lower-speed harmonics did tend to stand out in the 45 mph range, but went away with increasing speed. Some tire brands were worse than others AND unibody cars tended to have a sympathetic resonance which also magnified the situation, but body/frame cars were quieter. In later years, radials have had many of these things engineered out of them. So a radial built in '68 would not act the same as one built in 2008, for example.I tend to concur that a later model year wheel, as in post 1967, would be best to use, if possible. They will generally have a wider rim width than the earlier wheels.A KEY thing in any older vehicle is to make sure all of the suspension bushings are in good shape (not just "there", but uncracked or un-settled-out due to age) and all of the front suspension components are in similarly good condition. Plus the steering box adjustment!Regards,NTX5467 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 "A KEY thing in any older vehicle is to make sure all of the suspension bushings are in good shape (not just "there", but uncracked or un-settled-out due to age) and all of the front suspension components are in similarly good condition. Plus the steering box adjustment!"THAT'S IT! I still have the special tool I made to install the lower inner front suspension bushings on my Riviera. Its a bear. The car rides on new 7.10 X 15's with 1" whitewalls, smooth and sweet. If biased tires were as bad as they are portrayed those expensive cars would never have left the showroom. Who would have bought a rough riding, poor handling, tar strip chasing, $5,000 car to drive on the 1955 built NYS Thruway (designed for 100 MPH traffic) in 1964, six years before we put a man on the moon? Come on, technology existed then.I drive mine like this guy: Bernie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kingoftheroad Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Doesn't Coker Tire or someone sell radial tires that are made to look almost exactly like the Bias ply tires that came on your old car ?? You get the best of both worlds, the looks of one with the handling of the other... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NTX5467 Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 Coker has some wide-whitewall radials with what appears (at least to me) to be prior-generation BFG tread designs on them. ONLY way to ge the "narrow treaded" OEM style tires is to get the bias ply repro tires.It seems that many have forgotten how fast they drove many of the cars back when they were new . . . and on what kind of highways! My late uncle worked the night shift as a maintenance man at a petro chemical plant east of Houston. He usually had Oldsmobiles back then, circa 1955, after he got married. He also liked to drive fast. Once, he didn't want to spend the money for real white wall tires, so he opted for black walls and then added the "add-on white walls" to them. One night on the way home, through the boondocks county road, he "aired it out" and thought he saw something fly past in the fringes of the headlights. The car didn't act any different, so he didn't worry about it . . . until the next morning and his wife awakened him wanting to know what happened to one of the whitewalls. 1955 or 1956 car in the later 1950s on "good roads" back then . . . out in the middle of no-where . . . after midnight. Nobody worried about trying to go around corners really fast back then, except when they were going too fast and went "elsewhere". It was about driving fast in a straight line, more than anything else. The old drum brakes were usually good for one good, hard stop, anyway, which was usually all that was needed (unless you were in the mountains). Yep, a lot of that stuff we now insist on replacing was good enough to do those things back then. Do we know better now???In many cases, traffic density is such that such activities can't be done now, unless you go a good ways away from home.Enjoy!NTX5467 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pontiac59 Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 I've had full caps fly off late model vehicles that came new with radial tires, so there is no real change in rim construction from the 50s to the 1990s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NTX5467 Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 I've had full caps fly off late model vehicles that came new with radial tires, so there is no real change in rim construction from the 50s to the 1990s.When the "round body" Caprice police cars came out, they put their inexpensive plastic/metal composite full wheel covers on those cars. Later, there was a TSB about them flying off . . . or becoming "MIA". The fix was to replace them with the more expensive full covers made out of stainless steel. The first ones had a plastic base over which the outer skin was placed and retained with a wire clip. Obviously, it didn't hold up for the hot/cold cycles they endured in police use.Enjoy!NTX5467 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pontiac59 Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Didn't matter, I lost a few stainless caps, that's why I mentioned it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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