Tire sizes

[wildfifty2]

The UPS guy showed up tonight with my new Hurst racing tires.. Since i have no plans to mount them myself like Coach did... I will be taking them to the tire shop tomorrow after work...

[NEWFISHER]

Good news! Its like Christmas at your place
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[Coach529]

Originally Posted by wildfifty2

The UPS guy showed up tonight with my new Hurst racing tires.. Since i have no plans to mount them myself like Coach did... I will be taking them to the tire shop tomorrow after work...

Congrats!!

[wolffcub]

Could someone do me a huge favor? I have a 49 3100 and do not have the rear fenders yet. Can someone tell me what the distance is from the inside of rolled fender edge to the box side. Im trying to see what the largest tire is that i can fit with no rub.

[oldman3]

It should be right at 12"...Jim

[fangard]

Originally Posted by wolffcub

Could someone do me a huge favor? I have a 49 3100 and do not have the rear fenders yet. Can someone tell me what the distance is from the inside of rolled fender edge to the box side. Im trying to see what the largest tire is that i can fit with no rub.

I get right around 12". I too am trying to squeeze the largest tire I can back there. Looking at Cragar SS rims. I am hoping to go with a 17" rim with 3 3/4" backspacing, 8" or 9" wide.

[Hampshire]

It's about 11.5", though you may not want to use all that. You shouldn't be right against the bed with the sidewall. Some room should be left to for when one wheel goes up & the axle rotates on it's axis. Bob at the Wheelsmith likes to see the sidewall at least an inch from the bed, but I can see it being a bit less than that. As for distance to the inner lip, it's up to you what kind of look you want & how much you've dropped the truck. With a big drop, the sidewall could rub on the inner lip if you go too wide & so on...

I just went though all this. I spent a couple weeks mocking all this up - now it's going back in the shop for final work - will have some pics in May. I have a modest drop (3") and wanted as meaty a tread on back with clearance to the bed + I didn't want the tires looking like they were sticking out. I want to emphasize, though, that my solution reflects my tastes - not what is "right". If I were to go wider than what I have and a bit lower, I would probably go the minitub route.

The only advice I would definately give is to not order rims & tires until you have your fenders on and do some mock-up work. I bought a couple Wheel Vintiques smoothies for this from Summit (I already have them sold when I'm done with them) and a couple of the tires I'm using (my shop will exchange them as long as I don't "roll" them). Time, effort & $ well spent...

[wolffcub]

Originally Posted by Hampshire

It's about 11.5", though you may not want to use all that. You shouldn't be right against the bed with the sidewall. Some room should be left to for when one wheel goes up & the axle rotates on it's axis. Bob at the Wheelsmith likes to see the sidewall at least an inch from the bed, but I can see it being a bit less than that. As for distance to the inner lip, it's up to you what kind of look you want & how much you've dropped the truck. With a big drop, the sidewall could rub on the inner lip if you go too wide & so on...

I just went though all this. I spent a couple weeks mocking all this up - now it's going back in the shop for final work - will have some pics in May. I have a modest drop (3") and wanted as meaty a tread on back with clearance to the bed + I didn't want the tires looking like they were sticking out. I want to emphasize, though, that my solution reflects my tastes - not what is "right". If I were to go wider than what I have and a bit lower, I would probably go the minitub route.

The only advice I would definately give is to not order rims & tires until you have your fenders on and do some mock-up work. I bought a couple Wheel Vintiques smoothies for this from Summit (I already have them sold when I'm done with them) and a couple of the tires I'm using (my shop will exchange them as long as I don't "roll" them). Time, effort & $ well spent...

So what tire and wheel size did you go with? I ran over to my parents house and got my fenders and installed them . I only get 11.25 for an actual clear dimension after the rolled lip on the inside of the fender.

Was thinking to mount 235/60 r15 on the rear with a 7" rim and that should give me a sectional tire width of about 9.5".

The fronts i was going to go 225/60 r15 with a 6" rim and that should give me a sectional tire width of about 8 7/8"

Im also having a 3" drop on mine. I would love to see some pics of yours and how it sits. If no pics yet please share your tire and wheel sizes asap if possible.

[Hampshire]

Your solution sounds very good...

I went just a little bit wider - also, my tires are taller (29"). I had already mocked it up with 26-27" tall 15s but I thought they looked too small on my long bed (it's a 3600). I could have tried 255/70R15s for the back (closer to 29") but in the end I decided to use 16" rims because there were more tire choices in the height range I was looking at. There are also some decent options with steel wheels (the Wheelsmith).

After experimenting with 235/70R16 for the front and 255/65R16 for the back, I settled on 16 x7" rims with 4" backspace. I had hoped to use an 8" (4.5"backspace) rim on back, but I came up with 10.5" sidewall/sidewall with the 255/65R16. With the 60" axle, the sidewall was pressing against the bed. On a 7" rim The sidewall/sidewall measurement went down to 10". This gave me 1/4" clearance to the bed. I'm going bump that out a bit with a 1/2" spacer - i think that should be enough.

On the front, I use the same 7" rims (4" backspace) with 235/70R16 tires. My iFS is for a modest drop and has a 59" track. It is not what most people see - an early Jim Wiemer design that you can see on Gayle Richards site (Gayleco). Gayle worked with Jim in another era designing these & knows this design well. Gayle currently uses JWs parts for his IFS.

So, I now have what I want…. 7+" of tread on front and 8+" on back, some nice dish in the wheels and nothing looks like it is sticking out….Hope this helps…I know, pics would be better, but it is going in the shop later this week to finish the suspension work and put the new tires/rims on. I'll put up some photos then.