Tires and tubes

[deac]

I own a '40 Super and it has radial tires on it. And because of the cars recent steering failure the days of the radials are numbered.  I believe to correct size of a bias ply tire for my car is a 6.50-16.  But the question becomes tubeless or tubed tires  After reading a blurb on Coker Tires website the tire bead area must be contoured/manufactured to match the wheel to make a good air tight fit for a tubeless tire to work.  Otherwise I would need to be a tube. So I would assume all wheels are constructed alike and I would have buy a 'tubeless' tire to avoid buying  a tube. It makes no difference if it's a 15" Century wheel or a 16" Super wheel it all comes down to the construction of the tire which has to match to the contour of the wheel to go tubeless.  Is my thinking correct?  Is there more to it than I think?

[Matt Harwood]

Don't over-think it. Skip the tubes. Your wheels should seal up just fine. I've been running without tubes on my '41 for many years and having had a rash of tube failures in another car recently, anything you can do to get rid of a failure vector is a good idea. As long as the wheels hold air, you'll have no problems going tubeless. The issue regarding proper rim contours is possibly a factor way out on the edges of probability, but air inside the tire will hold it in place just the same as air inside a tube inside the tire.

 

Plus going tubeless is cheaper!

[Daves1940Buick56S]

Agree completely. The only caveat I would add is that the older rims weren't designed for tubeless and are missing that small bead near the edge of the rim. It shouldn't matter unless you are doing really hard high speed cornering, and that isn't something we should be doing anyway with cars of older vintage.

[deac]

My only response is that I want to safe especially when at highway speeds of 55 - 60! I do appreciate your responses.

Edited July 25, 2023 by deac (see edit history)

[Bloo]

Nothing beats a properly inflated tubeless radial for reliability. Nothing.

 

 

[deac]

2 hours ago, Bloo said:

Nothing beats a properly inflated tubeless radial for reliability. Nothing.

 

 

I hear you but I have heard from my old car buddies that radials are hard cars that were designed to have bias ply tires and concur with that!  On my 57 Pontiac your could barely turn the wheel with the radial tires on it.  It was a night and day difference when I put the bias ply tires on it!

[Bloo]

Were they close to the same size? I have always suspected that must happen when people choose a radial that is quite a bit wider than the original tires, and that happens a lot due to the sizes that are available to buy. When I changed the 36 Pontiac over to radials, I was able to hit the width pretty close, only about 1/2" wider. I meant to make a side by side comparison but I forgot to until a couple of days later. Honestly I can't tell the difference parking. It is manual steering, so you want to be moving a little to steer easy, but that isn't new with the radials.

 

[Morgan Wright]

12 hours ago, Matt Harwood said:

.... air inside the tire will hold it in place just the same as air inside a tube inside the tire.

 

Plus going tubeless is cheaper!

 

It will hold the tire in place, but will it hold the air? I have found "slow leak" too familiar a phrase and always use tubes on rims not designed for tubeless. With tubes you can let a car sit for years and never lose a drop of air. Slow leak schmo leak.

[EmTee]

My '38 came with bias-plies and no tubes.  The tires held air just fine, but the 8-ply nylon tires rode like the truck tires they were.  I replaced them with bias-ply Firestone reproductions with tubes.  So far, so good (~2500 mi.)...

[Guest]

I switched my 38 to drive diamond back bias look radials, tubeless.  While you in south fl I drove it almost every day.  Now I'm in TN and have checked the air/topped off once in 3 years.  I still need to replace the rears when budget allows but for comparison the tubeless hold air better than the tubes.

[Steve_bigD]

I run also Diamond back 6.50:16 radials on my '38 Special with no tubes and have had no air loss over the 3 months I monitored pressure which I run 32lbs. I did have the wheels checked for integrity and straightened by a wheel shop before mounting the tires. I was running 25 year old Lester bias plys before and the difference is amazing. The car not only handles much better but is more stable on the highway and has a better ride. I have not noticed any appreciable increase in the turning effort but this could happen if the tires are wider than stock or the pressure is set to the low pressures on the sticker in the glove compartment. My installer said to run 32-35 lbs.

I would heartily recommend switching to tubeless radials of the OEM size and run 32lbs. pressure minimum.

 

Steve D

[EmTee]

3 minutes ago, Steve_bigD said:

My installer said to run 32-35 lbs.

I have 7.00-15 Firestone bias plies on my '38 Century and concur WRT pressure.  I run 34 in front and 32 in the rear.  So far (~2500 mi.) no issues with my tubes.

[deac]

Thanks for your detailed reviews. But how can I figure out if the wheels are for a 40 super and if it is meant for a tubeless tire; which I presume it would be. The wheels are painted blue and my car is a silver gray so I don't want assume anything at this point.

Edited July 27, 2023 by deac (see edit history)

[Morgan Wright]

21 hours ago, swab said:

I switched my 38 to drive diamond back bias look radials, tubeless.  While you in south fl I drove it almost every day.  Now I'm in TN and have checked the air/topped off once in 3 years.  I still need to replace the rears when budget allows but for comparison the tubeless hold air better than the tubes.

 

That must be a typo. It's impossible to hold air better than tubes.

[EmTee]

17 hours ago, deac said:

But how can I figure out if the wheels are for a 40 super and if it is meant for a tubeless tire; which presume it should be.

Are there any numbers or ID codes stamped on them?  Probably need to look in the rim area between the beads with the tire removed.