Reply to: RE: [VAC] Re: what brand of tire is good?
As Gerald notes below about the side flex, many of the older airstreams, depending on
the year and model, have very little tire clearance in the wheel-wells. Make sure you
take this into consideration in tire selection - look at your particular situation.
In the case our '65 Caravel, there is no way a radial would ever work, and we stayed
with the bias ply LT. I've seen other models from the early sixties that had plenty of
room for any tire.
RJ
VintageAirstream.com
geraldj wrote:
>Radial sidewalls are made to flex, bias ply sidewalls made to not flex.
>If either are loaded so the sidewalls flex a lot, the sidewall life is
>compromised, more rapidly in bias ply tires. For the sidewalls of bias
>ply tires to flex, diagonal layers of fabric have to slide against each
>other (even when glued together) and that makes heat. Radial tires have
>the grain of the fabric all in one direction so they don't rub, they
>just bend the fibers that are running from the bead at one side straight
>out (radially) to the tread, across, and back to the other bead at the
>same location. The first set of radial tires I owned changed temperature
>on the highway only from the sun, not from hundreds of miles of driving.
>That was never true with bias ply tires.
>
>The maximum sway from the flexible sidewalls of radial trailer tires
>shouldn't be more than an inch or two. Big tractor tires will allow at
>least a couple inches side sway and when the cultivator shovels are only
>6" apart that couple inches is enough to mean the difference between
>dead weeds and dead crop when added to an inch or two lateral
>imprecision in driving.
>
>Gerald J.
>
>
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