Bias Plys vs. Radials... Chime in folks!

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I run the bias plys on the roadster because it has no fenders and it needs the look......
Clark

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Probably the ONLY good reason to run bias ply, The look!

 

I love my 51, but I aint selling my 2002 New Beetle and relying on her to get me from point a to b in the same way that I reply on my beetle.

If the 51 was going to be a daily driver I'd be doing a ton of things to get it ready for that. Things like a mustang front end, newer technology engine, etc.

It's the same with my scoots. I've got a new state of the art but looks old scoot and an actual old scoot that will be suited for parades, rallies, non city driving, etc.

So..

I guess it all depends on what you are asking your car to do for you.

Stacey

 

Oh yeah...forgot to add...Michigan roads are dangerous enough in a newer car with radials...those 6" ruts, curb-height pavement shifts and piss-poor seams would have you working overtime to keep a car with bias tires in one lane!

(This is something I KNOW!! )

I used to get out of my bias-equipped rides feeling whipped....after see-sawing the wheel back and forth across town fighting the car every inch of the way...part of the "experience" of driving an older car that I can live without these days!

In other states, I'm sure that bias tires wouldn't suck quite as bad...but here they're best left to the masochist!!!

 

bias are cool and look great but i fought my car for 6 months before i switched and have only thought about going back for cost reasons. stick w/ radials, especially on BIG cars with lots of wieght, its so much easier to control w/ radials

 

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bias are cool and look great but i fought my car for 6 months before i switched and have only thought about going back for cost reasons. stick w/ radials, especially on BIG cars with lots of wieght, its so much easier to control w/ radials

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I disagree . Unless you have power steering , radials suck on a heavy car . In a biasply , with the smaller footprint of my firestone biasply tires the car turns like it has power steering . I had a shoebox along time ago and it had radials , it turned like a dumptruck . the radials had a huge footprint and it felt like it was turning in a puddle of mud . of course with a smaller footprint you lose a little traction which could be a bummer if you like to corner in excess of 100 mph ( which I dont ) , but otherwise I would take B/P handling characteristics over radials , any day .

 

That's what I said, Grimlok.

 

I will try to describe the difference with bias ply tires vs radial tires on your old car in a checklist type of fashion.

Radials will be harder to turn the front wheell when standing still. Radials will drive straighter on roads that have groves, ruts and will not try to grab every line in the road. Radials will last longer. 30K - 50K miles on a set.

Bias Ply tires are narrower and will turn easier at slow speeds than radials. Bias ply tires will squeal when you turn corners at 15-20 miles per hour. Sounds like a soft burn-out. Bias ply tires will try to grab grooves in the road and follow them, so you have to really drive with both hands on the wheel. Bias Plys will wear out faster. 15K - 25K miles on a set


Now for the opinion part of my post. I think radials look wrong on an old car. They are too fat and the tread pattern is not right. I run bias ply tires on all my old cars, because a bias ply white wall looks WAY better than a Radial White wall. Also, those radial white wall tires they make now turn yellow for some reason. EVERYONE will tell you not to buy the Coker Radial White walls, and they are pretty much your only option in white walls when it comes to radials.

Now, you decide.

 

Just for the record, I agree, WWWs don't look right on a radial unless it's an old Continental radial WWW on an old VW.
IF I ran WWWs on a car they would be bias ply, but I'd have to have a big trunk o store the alternate four "real" highway tires in!

 

Right now I'm running the Walmart special... uniroyals at $25 a tire because I'm broke. Althought bias plys don't handle as nice as radials, some wide white bias plys would be nice someday since my rims don't take kindly to the tubeless radials (always leaking ) and IMO bias ply's look better.

~Melissa

 

I... really couldn't tell too much of a difference between the radials on my '64 Galaxie and bias-plys. I think some one said something about the biasplys handle better with heavier cars... I'd have to agree with that then, as the radial's seemed the same or even more squirrelly when I hit bumps with my wal-mart radials then when it did with the old bias.

 

dr j have you ever checked out diamondback tires...they made my friend a pair of radial www and look sweet...we drove the car 8000 miles this summer with no problem
diamondback sent the tires from england (16 inch) and then valcanize their white wall on that tire...at the end there is no lettering on the outside of the tire for a real clean look

young buck

 

Ok, I'm chiming in as someone old enough to have driven daily and competed on both radials and bias ply tires. As a matter of fact, we are still competing on bias ply tires. the IMCA spec tire is bias ply and you have to completely adjust your driving style on them compared to running radials but, we are talking traditional rods and customs here. I have to agree with the old school thinking that modern radial tires look out of place on a rod and there are some advantages to the bias ply tires. For one, bias ply tires don't seem to come apart as destructively as radials do. Radials will definetley hairlip the corners of your fender wells when the steel belts separate. 2: You can run the bias ply tires until they have almost no tread left where as it is little known that radial tires are effectivly worn out when 50% of the tread is gone and are subject to separation and just don't perform as well after that. With some cheaper radials, it is even sooner. 3: Although radials are vastly superior in almost every respect when it comes to handling, the do have a much more sudden breakaway factor than bias ply which could get a novice driver attempting to drive to the limits of the tires adhesion into some ugly trouble. For me, I will stay with radials on my 57 Ford because they don't look that bad and the car drives great with them but, if I actually get around to building my 46 Merc, I will probably try to get period correct tires.

 

I run bias plies on both the roadster and my 51 Chevy.
I have no complaints about them on either car.
The roadster is light and no problem to maneuver on rutted high ways.
The Chevy had radials on it when I bought it. The front end was really squirrelly with them. I found some nos cushion air bias plies, $50 for the four of them. The car rides great with them. I agree with what Mike said, the suspension is set up for the old technology so it works well.

Plus I’m a total cheap skate and bias tires are cheaper.

 

do you want your car to look like its from california, or florida. thats what it all boils down to.

 

Ha Ha!!! Way to go Ricky!

California = Bias
Florida = Radials
Michigan = Swampers

 

i love my b-p's and i drive the shit out of the hi-1

 

Ok Fat hack, so are your swampers are Bias ? If she big and a old set it is

 

I really didn't want to get in the middle of all this, but all I want to say is that I have fond story that goes along with bias plys..

It's 1985. I'm 10 (DON'T BOTHER ON RIPPING ON ME YOU OLD GUYS...)

This guy around the block from me had a cherry 1969 Caddy Coupe Deville (the 2 door).

One day I ride over there on my dirt bike to see what's up (I did this alot, and credit him for getting me into old cars, paint and body work.)

He's taking his radials off the rear, and bolting on some Sears bias plys that were older than me. Blackwalls, no hubcaps...he just smirks and says he's trying out some old tires.

That night, about 11 PM, I'm in my room (sing: "In my room....in my room...") with the lights out & in bed. I hear his car (I knew it's sound) drive by. i got up to see those tall thin Caddy taillights come to rest at the end of my street, a corner. All of a sudden he tears around the corner leaving the longest, loudest, squealing, smoky burnout I'd ever heard to that point. I could smell the rubber for 10 minutes in my bedroom. I heard a few more over the couse of the next few minutes. I got excited.

Next morning, I rushed thru breakfast to grab my bike and inspect the pavement. Standing start, one wheel peel, around the corner and down the side street for at least 200 feet! Whoa.

I peddal over to his place, and he's in his driveway changing out the back tires and putting on the "stock" radials and hubcaps. I didn't need to ask him what he had been up to the night before, and he knew I knew. When you're 10, things like that are pretty cool.

That, and having a guy who's 20 let you hang out while he works on cars. Not minding you're pestering him with questions. This one's for you, Rob...


Bias plys do killer burnouts, and as far as I'm concerned, that's about it. They look great on "museum cars"...

 

Avoid putting them on a newer car at all costs.... Got a set of brand new bias snows dirt cheap and put them on my winter ride. They were 6.00X12 Good Year Silvertown Trail Makers, what they were originally intended for I don't know. The next day I took it on a 2 hour trip at speeds of 70 MPH. All I can say was that it was some serious white knuckle driving for a 20 year old kid. They hummed like Thornbird TSL Super Swampers and pulled at every single little crack in the road. They had a ton of rolling resistance so they got literally hot on the pavement. They sucked in the snow. And they were bald in 4000 miles.

I will have to admit, however - the car really did steer easy with em and they were bitchin looking. This time I spent $20 extra and got radials.

 

Bias Plys of course, those have more rock'n'roll than all records of Gene Vincent and GV is the KING

 

Bias plys have 'the look' for sure, but you can get in the general, fuzzy, looks-OK-at-60-mph-if-you-blur-your-eyes ballpark with a set of radials if you get the right sizes. C9's '31 roadster is a good example of this.

Someone asked for a photo--my '32 RPU chassis is set up with 215/85R16's in the rear and 165/R15's in the front, which I think is a reasonable setup if you're dead set on radials:



Of course, I'm also putting flat black front disc brakes on a highboy, so I'm clearly out of my friggin' mind!

 

Hey Zonk....where'd u score those rear radials in CA?

Id love to get my hands on a set for my ride. Whats other sizes do they come in?

Rat

 

Bias ply's SUCK....

When I FIRST joined this board,I made mention of this fact.....
Ryan thought I was in the wrong place......
I stand by that statement.
They SUCK, if you want to DRIVE your car..........
If you want it to LOOK pretty,then by all means,put a set of 'ply's on it............

Ya ever lose a tread at high speed with a 'ply?

OR....try to hold it in the 'groove' at speed with a set of 'ply's ????

From a guy who has "been there,done that".......

Bias ply's SUCK.

And.......I will PROLLY put a set on my next rodney.....

Go figure..........

 

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Hey Zonk....where'd u score those rear radials in CA?

Id love to get my hands on a set for my ride. Whats other sizes do they come in?

Rat

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The 215/85R16's are Dunlop Radial Rover AT light truck tires. That size is a bit hard to find stateside, but I found quite a few Japanese manufacturers that sell that size in Asia & Europe, but do not import it to the U.S. Not enough demand for them, I guess. Do a Google search on the tire size and you'll likely find them.

The Dunlop tread is closer in vibe to old dirt track tires than old bias ply Firestones, but there you go. Some of the Japanese 215's I found had light truck 'highway tread' designs, which are the closest aesthetic match to a bias-ply tire I've seen in a radial. They don't import those here, but you might be able to get 'em...

 

Why I have bias plys?

...because in Austria I pay $740,- for a set one bias plys and about $1200,- for a set of radials by coker...

 

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I'm probably going to drive some distances but with no disk brakes, I think I'll be keeping my speed down till I get a handle on driving the massive beast.

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'51 chevy ... massive beast?? damn and I thought they were on the smaller end of the spectrum. I guess driving a '56 caddy for a while will do that to ya.

For what it is worth my brother drove his ride around for like 2 years on bias-ply. Only in town though and not over 55. I never heard him complain about them.

 

Thanx for the info Zonk....i'll scope it out here in Oz.

Rat

 

So Stacey.... did you order your "upgraded" radials yet???

 

The biggest car I've ever owned was Honda Civic. My current car is a new bettle. So, when you put them side by side, it feels like a beast to me (though I love her just the same!)

Stacey