I'm considering purchasing Excelsiors or Coker Cl***ic radial tires for the front axle of my 39 Plymouth pickup resto-rod. I would be mounting them on oem 16x4 steel rims without safety beads. According to Coker, I'll need to run tubes in them no matter what wheels I have? I don't understand why? From what I've read, safety rims (with the beads) are supposed to keep a tire on the rim in the event of a blowout? The addition of a tube on a safety or non safety rim for a tubeless tire makes no sense to me? If you puncture or rupture a tire at speed, Likely, the tube would be destroyed. How can that possibly keep the tire from doing anything differently on a non safety rim? The only dangerous thing I can think of, is if air leaks around rivets or the bead on our old rims, this could lead to the bead unseating while driving / cornering? I guess that might be less likely if tubes are installed? So, my conclusion is safety rims are better, but if you don't have safety rims adding a tube will do nothing to keep the tires on the rim in a failure situation? Am I thinking correctly? Are these both good tires? Coker Cl***ic Radial 650R16 – 29.26 dia. / 6.8 sec. width Excelsior Stahl Sport Radial 700R16 - 29.1 dia. / 7.8 sec. width Are Coker's posted diameters accurate?
I haven’t personally run Coker radials but; I’ve run & currently running their bias ply. I’m now running tubeless bias & they drive nice. The set I ran with tubes had a death wobble & 45-55 mph Just my .02 Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I have Coker Cl***ic's on our wagon and absolutely no problems, I had the Excelsior's on my 32 highboy sedan, they were on 1940 Ford rims and I used tubes. HRP
The tire design dictates tube requirements, not the wheel. Most Coker 16" tires require tubes, both bias and radial. I would look at the Auburn series from DiamondBack. These are all tubeless radials. A 4" wheel is really too narrow for a the size tires you want to run, imo. Wheel width should be close to the tread width for safety and tire life.
I had a Coker sales person at the Portland OR swap meet tell me I could run them tubeless, they just told people they needed tubes because some dummy would try to run then tubeless on adjustable spoke wire wheels. I had already put tubes in mine, wish I hadn't but not worth pulling apart. I would personally run 7.00 on the back and 6.00 or 6.50 on the front. On my '36 Dodge pickup I run modern radials tubeless on stock '36 wheels. 225/75r16 rear and 215/70r16 on the front. Same combo on my '31 Model A coupe. 235/85r16 rear and 215/70r16 front on my '33 Plymouth fenderless coupe. Safety beads or no safety beads makes no difference tubed or tubeless. Dave
I have them (Excelsior Stahl Sport radials) on my RPU 16x5.00 and 16x7.00 mounted on Wheel Vintiques Gennie series 14 steel wheels 16x4.5 front and 16x6 rear. I had them mounted without tubes and they’re working fine. I’ve only put about 1000 kilometres on them but they are great. The tire shop that mounted them put them on the Hunter road force balancer and the fronts required no weights. The rears required minimal weights. They run nice and smooth no wobbles or vibrations at any speed. I absolutely believe it’s a CYA move from Coker.
I’ve been running Auburn Radial tubeless tires from Diamond Back for the last year and I have been very happy with them. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I run the Coker / Firestone bias plys without tubes on original 40 Ford wheels on my A coupe with no problems. Just be sure that the wheels aren't pitted at bead edge and coat the rivet heads on the inside of the rim with silicone sealant. The biggest advantage to this is, if you have a puncture you at least have a chance to repair with a plug without removing tire from wheel. Especially helpful if you have no room for a spare.
Thanks everyone for the reply's! On the 39-47 Mopar trucks the oem sized 6.50-16 tires on the 4"rims look really wimpy on the rear in those huge fender wells. To fill that in a bit, I had Wheelsmith make two 16x7 vintage style rims with offset to adjust outwards about an inch. I'm considering 225/75R16 with 29.3" diameter, 8.9" section width. I really like the look of the original sized skinnier tires on the front. They fit the openings nicely. I like the look of skinny front / wider rear tires on these trucks. With original steering, I figure it wise to keep narrow tires up there. Seems my options are very limited in black-wall radials. The only ones I've been able to find are the Coker Cl***ics or Excelsiors. These two are very close to the diameter and width of my 6.50-16s and I figure should work OK with the 225/75R16s on the rear? I was hoping to find the same brand for front and rear, but looks like that's not an option. I would have liked to eliminate the tubes up front and am also hoping I'll achieve better driving characteristics with the radials? Wishful thinking? Tires I'm removing are BF Goodrich bias ply 650-16 with tubes, 29.5 dia. To keep diameter close to originals my options are: Coker Cl***ic Radial 650R16 – 29.26 dia. / 6.8 sec. width, 5.4" tread width. Excelsior Stahl Sport Radial 700R16 - 29.1 dia. / 7.8 sec. width, 5.2" tread width.
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