Does anyone know? I've purchased a set of aftermarket wire wheels. The fella I got them from says they came on a car that was built around 20 years ago and thought the were Coker. The front are 5x15 and the rear are 8x15. They are factory chrome and in very good condition. After buying them and putting 2 and 2 together along with what he told me, he basically got sick of losing air with a tubeless radial set up. I'd say, judging by the way he claimed his car was unstable over 60 mph, he didn't dare try bias ply tires with tubes. He replaces them with one piece aluminum wheels and radials. I didn't realize it at the time but putting tubes in a radials doesn't work all that well. The extra flexing together with the ribbing inside a radial causes to much heat and friction resulting in tube shifting and failure. He managed to seal the rears as all of the spoke come through the relief part of the wheel. But on the front, half of the spokes come through on the bead portion of the wheel. Between the outer rim edge and the ridge about one inch from the outer rim. He tried unsuccessfully to seal them with some sort of bitchathane type wrap but ended up using tubes on the front. So my question is, can these wheels be sealed with a urethane or silicone around the spoke holes or should I plan on bias ply tires with tubes. Or maybe there's a radial tire out there that is designed to work with a tube... Or maybe abandon them and go with steelies... My plan is to paint them black and put them on my 1920 Hudson pictured in my profile pic. It's actually my sons car. I just do all of the figuring... Thanks for your time, big"D"®,
Have run tubes in many brands of radials for over 40 years. Buy radial tubes, no problem. Also, radial tubes work in either type tire. Those wires look great !
If you want to run radials, tubes work just fine, you use a radial tube with a radial easy peezy. My bike has radials and tubes and I don't have a problem and the early radials (before steel belts) ran tubes as well. I have run steel belted radials with tube for many miles as well. The trick to running radials tubes or otherwise is to run them hard most people don't watch their air pressure and have problem prematurely. With tubes it is real important that you watch your air pressure. or you can run bias ply tires, you just drive a bias ply different then you do a radial.
Just make sure you use innertube rubbers to protect the tube and a copious amount of talc powder to prevent chafing.
Big 'D': Pretty sure those wheels are McLeans. Front are 'lip laced', (spokes on outer lip of wheels, a McLean trademark around mid-'70s. Gary and his son sold the biz (and the name) continuing business as 'Rally Sport', until a fire closed their doors. Gary's son has been on here as 'Wheelkid'. Speaking of radial tube woes, I have a set of Romeo Palemides 2 piece aluminum wheels on my F100. These were made just prior to the Torq-Thrust, which Romeo sold with his wheel biz to American Racing. I found a set of Uniroyal Tiger Paws for them, 205/60 X 15 front, 235/70 X 15 rear. As they are 2 piece wheels, it's necessary to run tubes: Coker radials. Problem: The inside of the tires have radially-molded 'ribs', running from side to side...1/4" apart, these ribs are 1/16" cross section, and kind of 'sharp'. When installing the tires/tubes, the wheel halves are separate, allowing the tubes to be partially inflated. This should ensure the tube to expand smoothly, after torqueing the wheels together. But that's not always the case. Two pinched tubes, one suddenly losing its air on 99 coming back from Billetproof...Lucky for me, the truck is stable...Able to stop, not a scratch on the wheel; the second one was on the left rear. (I thought someone let the air out, but careful enough to suspect the worst, opened it up. Damn! Another big pinch!) These wheels were designed by Romeo and a friend, Chuck Turner; Chuck wanted some wheels for his F100, that resembled Kelsey Hayes wires...but with 'mag-style' spokes. I wanted 'em when I saw 'em...my Dad had a set, so he made sure I finally got 'em! Life is good...in the land of pinched tubes, flat tires, and constant worry.
What you are referring to is called a flap. It's like a very big and wide rubber band. It should fit into the drop center of the wheel and cover the nipples and spoke ends. Failing being able to obtain these, wrapping that area with several layers of duct tape or wide electrical tape will suffice. Radial tubes are a must when running a tube in any radial tire.
They are stamped 4 10 91 2302 JJTB then under that it says Made in USA 15x5... I assume that is the date followed by the model number 2302 but I'm not sure. I would really like to know what the JJTB stands for. I obviously punched all this into google but didn't get much info back. I did find that the bead laced style is more common with front wheel drives when a greater back-set is needed.
I have a set of 15x5” (repop) Chevy rally wheels that read “2 17 93 2302 JJTB 15x5.0 made in USA. Based on the variety of rims on the interwebs that contain this info, I’d guess JJTB is the wheel (or rim?) manufacturer.
JJ is the rim profile. Most anything made in the last 40 years will be either a JJ or a JK. No idea what the TB means.
Hello, Everyone has a story and so it is up to the person to do what he wants to do with his tires. Suggestions are common from all of the stories. We grew up with bias ply tires. Why? That was all that was available to the ordinary teenager. What came with the car was used until it was time for new tires. The whitewalls were prevalent from the factory, so a lot of people turned them inside out for a different look. 1959 But, no one complained about how long or what kind. Bias tires were just a part of early sedans and hot rods. As soon as the radial tires came on the scene and were affordable for all drivers, then the studies and tests that car magazines did on the comparisons made people think twice about bias ply tires. Remember, bias ply is/was the original traditional tire for all of those 50-60s cars. So, if it means anything, folks still stick to trying to be “back in the future.” It does give the original look to the original cars. Jnaki So, if that is your thing and safety is mandatory for family and teens driving your hot rod or sedans, the bias ply tires have their own history. Some ride well, others not so much. All old tires need balancing and tire shaving to give any sort of good riding effects. Even radial tires had their difficulties about balancing/tire truing in the same manner as bias ply. But with modern technology, there is less to worry about when getting name brand radial tires, and not just the cheapest ones you can find. Cost is not in the picture, when safety and security is mandatory in our daily drivers. My 58 Impala was going through a phase as to drag racing with more modifications, a possible Paxton/McCullogh supercharger, etc. or get some custom stuff done to change the look. For a change, the Impala was fast for meeting any adventures on the street anywhere. So, fortunately, a 5 rim set of pristine Buick Skylark wire wheels came into the picture. The cost was there, but there was room available to buy the wire wheels and get the modifications done locally, in a well known Bixby Knolls machine shop. (Henry’s Machine Shop.) The information we got as the modifications were being done was that those shops along Cherry Avenue were there for a purpose. It was a block or two long conglomeration of speed shops, tire shops, chrome accessories shop, body and paint, head porting/polishing, and general mechanics shops for any build or repairs. It was mostly hot rods and fast cruisers in this two block area. While the drums and hubs/axles were getting the changeover to Buick from the stock Chevrolet patterns, the local tire shop trued the tires, the other shops modified the Buick spokes to prevent leaks. Tightening and aligning the spokes worked, but all spoke wheels have more of a tendancy to leak. So, they put in a sealer compound around the end of the wires, then covered the whole center valley of the circular rim with what looked like an old, rubber, cut to fit, inner tube. That flat circular tube covered the inside sealed ends of the spokes and gave a solid sealed surface for air leaks. The wheel guy went the extra mile with some “lock tite” solution to each of the wire spoke ends. He did not want to see me coming back into his shop, so he was meticulous about the prep work and finished leak proofing the wire wheels. (they did not leak the whole time I owned it and drove it for 1000s of miles) cool custom by @themoose many thanks... The tires and rims went through some powerful street encounters and weather areas with flying colors. No leaks, tracked straight with the expert wheel balancing and alignment made the 58 Impala a nicely driven mild custom that was super fast and unique. YRMV Note: if the radial tires were around and affordable for us teenagers, then we would have used them. Safety, handling and coming into the general public market with lower cost, but, still with high quality construction and handling specs.
Just my experience I’v been running Truespoke wire wheels on our 57 Tbird with radials and tubes for 7 years now, other than finding a tire shop that understands how to install tubes in a car tire, 2 pinched tubes and one plastic sticker left in the tube that caused flats. It’s been great! When I ordered the wheels the nice man asked the weight and horsepower of the car, he said with wire wheels there are limitations, my 245 hp stock bird fit the bill. I believe the wheels tend to flex and I sometimes get a mild vibration between 55-60 mph. I love the look but, like pretty women, well (you know the rest) PS: I was advised by an old timer to keep the tires inflated to 40 psi this has help a lot
Tube-style radials used to be fairly common as European sports cars used them starting in the late '50 to the early '70s, although probably not in the sizes you'd need and they were all imported (Dunlop, Pirelli and Michelin mostly). They've pretty much disappeared since the wire wheels did the same as OEM because of the mentioned weight/horsepower limitations. Exceed those limits and out-of-round wheels will result. You can still get the tubes however. You can run tubeless tires with tubes, with one caveat; you need to downgrade the tire speed rating by at least one notch. Tubeless tires have an inner liner that functions as the tube which tube tires lack, adding the tube increases the sidewall thickness and causes them to retain more heat.
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