Firestone Military tires - anyone runnin' 'em?

Maybe I'm alone, but I really like the look of these military NDT tires for the model A truck I'm building. It's likely to be an RPU (don't have body yet). Wondering if anyone's got photos of such a setup? I assume it's been done before. I recall momentumphoto had some sort of knobbies on his '32 truck and it looked pretty killer. Here's a link to the tires I'm talking about.

http://www.coker.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=17476&cat=367&page=1

Your thoughts? Thanks!

 

It should also be noted that I know *nothing* about bias ply tires... what's the difference between 4-ply, 6-ply, etc... One better than the other - more=better?

 

i was looking at these on cokers web site last night. i was wondering th esame thing. the right car could pull them off i bet.

 

My 63 dodge pickup had cooper cross country military tires on it, they were kind of like slicks with only about a 3" square patch in contact with the road. I got stuck on a 4" square spot of ice one winter, it was hilarious

 

I'm in socal, so these'll certainly never see snow... I hope.

 

Yeah, I kinda like those too but it would have to be a well thought-out addition to a well thought-out build. If I used 'em I think I'd have to keep the car covered in mud all the time, you know, to complete the look. Price is certainly right too.

Perhaps on a rough fenderless P/U or maybe a tub with the rear seat coverted to a P/U bed... Hmmm, now you got me thinking. That's never good....

 

Exactly... that's my thought - a kinda rough-looking Model A RPU. Paint it some sort of military gray or something... hmm.

 

Those Tires are really cool, and pretty cheap too.

 

Back the the stone-age of tire production, when tire body plies were made of natural fiber (cotton/flax), the carrying capacity of the tire was increased by increasing the number of plies in the casing. 4 plies = 4 layers of fiber;6 plies = 6 layers, etc. The layers of rubber impregnated body plies were criss-crossed over each other diagonally from bead to bead, or on a bias, hence the name bias ply. As opposed to radial body plies that run on a radius straight from bead to bead.

As the engineering and raw materials progressed, fewer plies were required to carry the same load, and ply "rating" came into term. This later changed to the "load range" terminology that is used today. Radial construction is responsible for that. Most radials today have only one body ply and various combinations of belt plies.

Common translations are 4 ply= LR B; 6 ply= LR C; 8 ply= LR D, 10=E, 12=F, 14=G, etc,etc. We still get customers that buy $400 all-steel radial truck tires and want 14 ply.

More is not better, only will carry more weight. Rough ride on a light car.

 

I have NDT's on my military version Dodge Powerwagon. I can only imagine that on a hotrod of any normal construction, they will ride somewhat worse than absolute shit, regardless of the number of plies or any other factor. If you can FEEL the tread hitting the ground on a 7,000 lb. truck, I'd imagine it would be pretty evident on a 2200 lb. hotrod as well.