wide white dilema

[tkkruzer]

i want to have really wide white wall tires on my 52 sedan but i cant seem to find any. coker tire cost too much for my budjet , ie. 185 a tire. i was thinking around a buck fifty per set . any ideas ? what have you guys used? thanks ,,,,,,Tom

 

[Blue Eyed Devil]

$150 a set? You can't even buy Wal-Mart radials for that...

 

[Gregster]

you could always go the portawall route

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Atla...tZVintageQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

 

[donsrods]

$150 a set? You can't even buy Wal-Mart radials for that...

Amen. No question that tires are not cheap from places like Coker, but tires in general have gotten more expensive. I just called Coker the other day and ordered two rims and also asked about the 5:60 x 15 regular whitewalls I will be needing. Even those are about $ 150 per tire, and those are small tires.

I think the only way you can score $ 150 a set wide whites is to use Mary Carter house paint in white and do your own. As much as we all have budgets and like to save a buck where possible, sometimes you just need to break down and shake loose with some Ben Franklins.

Don

 

[dmw56]

You can either save your money (building cars is not cheap, never has been), grind a set of thin white walls or paint them.

 

[Crossfire]

www

You better get you some tire paint cause even at swapmeets widewhites aren"t cheap unless find a set dry rotted all to hell.If you are stuck on the cheap stuff buy you some port-a-walls and use good glue.

 

[rustydave]

I've used white Krylon Fusion spray paint with descent results. Just don't use it on a newer tire because it will turn a nasty brown in no time.

 

[TudorP15]

sometimes ya just gotta.

I am a tire CDS guy. IMHO tires are one of the most important part of any vehicle for not only looks, but also safety. I have WWW on my Plymouth, and they are awesome and will always have them on it. But they are Bias ply. I plan to switch them to the Coker raidials come spring, and the ones I need are $180 per tire. I can't afford that, but have no choice, and will just have to bite the bullet. I might be interested in selling my biased tires tho, because they are very good tires, and have low miles on them. Not sure what used bias would go for tho..

 

[BigIrish]

....grind a set of thin white walls...

+1 on that. I've done it and it looks good. Look on youtube or the tech tips section below. There are several vids that show how to do that. A few hours work and there you are.

Try it on a spare or junkyard tire first of course

 

[Sam_Fear]

Quick search. Here's a link. Homemade Whitewalls

Talks about grinding and painting.

 

[donsrods]

For the first time in my life I am considering radials. The Coker brand and the other ones they carry (Excelsior ?) really look like bias plies and are so much better handling wise.

Don

 

[tkkruzer]

wide whites

thanx guys for getting back to me.first i wanna say i know that tires are expensive , i just wanna find something cheeper than coker and something at a regular tire store rather then online. your ideas have looking into the fake whites. heard they work well. what do you guys say ?

 

[Blue Eyed Devil]

Most "fake" WWW's are just that, and they look amateur at best. Usually much worse than a nice blackwall would look IMO. There are other sources than Coker, but nothing you are going to walk into a local tire shop and pick up. What size tire are you looking for?

 

[tkkruzer]

wide whites

im looking for 185 to 205 , 75/14s . my 52 would look really cool with red rims and wide whites , with some chrome lug nuts. the car will be satin black with a desire to put on some old school flames in the near future.

 

[Torch]

I'm sure coker has much more overhead in a limited run product. I have a little insight into tire pricing.
I used to haul semi loads of tires out of the chicago suburbs on Bridgestone/Firestone runs.
according to the paperwork a $100-$120 retail tire is sold to the jobber or wholesaler at around $25 per tire.

Locally I would pay $380 for a new 14 ply 11r24.5 steer tire for my semi and $310 for a drive tire. I was happy if I could find used tires with 75% tread for $100 to $120 apiece because I need 10 of them at a time.
to put all new rubber on the tractor was close to 4 grand and they would last me about a year and a half to 2 years. brand new steers would last about 150k miles and drives about 220k miles.

It cost about 100 per tire to have them recapped.
there's nothing wrong with recaps on a truck they have the heavy casings to handle it.
Problem with recaps isn't the recapping it's a couple other things:
If there's a nail hole that doesn't get plugged moisture gets from inside the tire to the steel belts and rusts them then the casing gives out.
If the casing doesn't give out the hole can let air get under the cap. It forms a bubble and jacks the tread off the casing

After tire's been recapped a few times the casing is fatigued some recappers end up capping a casing beyond it's service life.
running a tire low on pressure or letting it get too hot will ruin a casing.
running a tire overspeed isn't good either
The caps I bought were capped by Walker Tire. they put drive tread on the first cap and trailer tread on the second cap. and high speed trailer tread on the last cap which is a thinner lighter cap.

I have had a couple come apart but they stood behind them and replaced them no charge. They won't recap car tires and you never never NEVER use a recap on a steer axle.
there have been some outfits on and off that have capped car and light truck tires but new tires are still cheap enough and the effects of losing a cap on a car are much more dramatic such that it's not a good idea.

Imported tires are an option
When I was paying $350 for a Firestone drive tire and i could have bought long lings out in California for $180 per tire.

The reason I did not is my recapper would not cap them.
Used firestone casings are worth about $60- $80 bucks. A worn ling long casing will cost you money to get rid of unless you find a capper who will cap them

There are tire distributors inland who sell the very cheap Chinese and Japanese made tires in the us market but at only a slight discount.
those $180 West Coast Chinese tires inland will cost you about $280 and very little of that is transport and handling.
They might pay about a dollar a tire or less to ship a 53' load of tires from the coast to the Midwest.
And a couple bucks a tire in storage and marketing
The distributors still don't make much off them.
Where does the money go?
to the man
Insurance and taxes
I don't know what kind of casings Coker uses to build their tires but the recap process is nearly identical to the new manufacture process. they both are the same in that they start with a premolded belt casing to which the tread is glued.
there isn't much difference in tire manufacture around the globe.
Chinese companies can use stronger adhesives that the US manufacturer's had to give up as per EPA and OSHA rules. but some have been caught taking shortcuts.

Remember the Firestone-Ford Explorer events?
I was transporting tires then
I was at the Firestone plant near Mt Vernon Ill and I asked an engineer "I just read about the EPA outlawing legacy adhesives in American industry, the shoe manufacturers have had to close American factories because the new gentler adhesives don't make a good shoe, they fall apart too soon and too easy. Do these rules effect the tire industry?"
His answer was Absolutely. He said the adhesives they were forced to use do not have as good of bite and they were waiting to see how new methods would hold up.
The ford explorers started shredding Firestones about 6 months after implementing the new methods mandated by the EPA.
That wasn't the whole of the problem.
Light truck tires larger than 235/15's with their flexible tall sidewalls are not recommended to be operated in excess of 65 mph. the bulge you see when the tire is standing still builds and gets larger as the tire rolls faster. the energy builds up in front of this bulge in a standing wave that heats the tire and fatigues the casing. Heavy truck tires run 60-120 psi of air and do not experience the effect so much.

The New less effective adhesives mandated to the entire tire industry have since been proved adequate. The folks at Firestone found the tires to hold up just as well by employing different designs and changing their procedures to get the components to adhere properly. The problem with the tires blowing out according to the engineers was never with Firestone or with Ford. It was with the owners.

The lawsuits and the Government investigations and actions were about politics.
"The voter is never wrong it's the big bad rich people who are responsible because they are evil and greedy and must be punished"
No wonder people decide to make things somewhere else.

Anyway, People who bought ford explorers ran the tires low on air to make them ride like swagger wagons and ran the vehicles in excess of 65 mph for extended periods. A combination of lack of technical knowledge and excess of aggressive driving. The tires failed simply from neglect and abuse. I myself have seen thousands of them going down the road just looking for trouble

What kind of tires you run depends on what you can afford and how you drive. there is no one tire for any occasion just don't overdrive what your rolling on and try to keep them pretty new. I've mostly heard no older than 10 years old at the very most for highway use. but I get new ones about every 5-8 years regardless of the tread and have never had a blowout on a car or pickup.

you might be able to do the rears the old school way and get truck tires recapped in a drag compound just make sure your running virgins on the front or you might turn your rod into a high speed skid steer.

I can't remember how to read the date code on the sidewall I have to keep looking it up.
The Tire Industry claims no expiration date on tires but we all know they get older and harder just sitting around

go by the recommended cold psi tire pressure on the sidewall and run the maximum stated. this is the cold pressure. You will experience higher pressures than stated when the tire is warmed up but that has been accounted for...
Contrary to what you might think more pressure (to a point) is easier on a tire.
low pressure feels smooth but it kills tires

Mike Ederer

 

[Blue Eyed Devil]

7.50-14 with a 2 1/4" whitewall are available from Lucas at $134 a pop. Not a bad price for a good looking tire that will look right on your car. Here's the link - http://www.lucasclassictires.com/

 

[tkkruzer]

wide whites

thanks guys for the info , this is what im looking for. do firestone dealers sell tires like these? there is a firestone dealer near me . [cl

 

[Blue Eyed Devil]

thanks guys for the info , this is what im looking for. do firestone dealers sell tires like these? there is a firestone dealer near me . [cl

Nope. Even if they can get them (which most won't), they are only going to order them from the same or a similar source and then charge you for something you could have done yourself. Sometimes you just gotta pick up the phone...

 

[RUSTBROTHER]

Dude all I got to say is "save up". Tires are everything when it comes to the right look. You can have a piece of crap car with a nice set of tires and wheels and you have a winner. But a nice car with crappy wheels is still ugly, no matter how nice the car was.,,,,Free advise from the RUSTBROTHER. p.s. my brother owns a tire and wheel store. (Gregster)

 

[Blue Eyed Devil]

Dude all I got to say is "save up". Tires are everything when it comes to the right look. You can have a piece of crap car with a nice set of tires and wheels and you have a winner. But a nice car with crappy wheels is still ugly, no matter how nice the car was.,,,,Free advice from the RUSTBROTHER.

Sage advice my friend...