Technical Bias Tire Balance

I haven't got out on the highway yet, that's something I'll do this week. Been busy taking another car apart. And it's rainy season.

 

"Liked" for obscure reference to gravy sammidge.

Skookum!

 

I can't fix the out of round but I can fix the balance problem.

 

Hi; I've mentioned this before and occasionally will repost . I have a tire shaving machine and I
can help if you're close enough and want to help clean up afterwards with me. I am south of
Chicago between Joliet and Indiana. I had experienced the very same problems that so
many of you have commented on here. I chased many dead end leads for anyone that could
shave out of round tires for me, but the closest ended up being south east of Indianapolis
and west of me near the Iowa - South Dakota boarder..... I started a search for a machine
of my own and happened to find one locally that had been placed on a pallet and shoved
into the corner of a warehouse some 30 to 40 years ago before I bought it. If I can be of
any help, feel free to reach out to me. regards, Steve

 

thanks, I'll keep you in mind. I'll be driving by there, not sure the route, next month.

 

According to some very well known hot rod builders, COKER never made a round Bias ply tire. They all need to be shaved & trued

 

That is simply not true. In the last decade, or so, I have gotten at least three that were nice and round!

 

With that luck, you may want to play the lottery. LOL!

 

If I could get 1-in-20 odds playing the lottery, I would be banned from playing, and super rich.

 

So true. I just hope you'll share your wealth of riches with your HAMB buddies!

 

I have had 2 sets of Coker Firestones, and both cars drove smooth as a gravy sammich. I have a bunch of dyna-beads I bought to go in the first set expecting them to be bad but never installed them. I think I'm just lucky because I've heard many complaints about Cokers.

I also have a pair of Coker Firestone Wide Oval muscle car tires that are bias look radials and they are smooth too.

 

Out of round bias tires aren't a new thing, When I worked at the Firestone Tire store in down town Waco in the early 70's our senior tire guy trued a lot of bias tires when they were new. It was about an extra 5 bucks a tire if that but it sure cut the complaints down.

 

Dan & Gimpy were your's Firestone Deluxe Champion Bias 15"?...

 

All the Firestone deluxe champions were 16", the other wide ovals are FR70 15s.

 

With one singular exception, nothing 15-inch was ever round.

 

Man...a subject that's so all over the place...my front champions are near done and it was a challenge to pacify them from the time I recieved the Hotrod...

I will be replacing them with the same...I do suspect they will be better due to the fact I can't imagine they would be as near unbalancable as the one of the old pair was...

As I mentioned the roadforce balance deemed that one pretty much a replace and on top of that it had a notable shift in the tread alignment...

From my reading of the build Thread the tires came from a swap meet, possibly new...but perhaps they were they seconds...or not new at all...

I'm glad I was able to pacify the turds because the tread was half decent and I got 5 years out of them not to mention I could do 65mph all day long without any wonkiness...faster than that things got a little shaky so I'm hoping the new replacements from Coker will be a breath of less difficult air...

 

OK, not looking for an opinion or speculation. Why would a tire be out of round? The mold isn't. So are they taken out of the mold while they are too hot? Did anyone here actually work in a tire plant that might know?

 

Had a tire issue on the front of my '33. (not a bias or Coker, but stay with me). Tire shop I had been going to for at least 20 years (Mom & Pop operation) sold me them. Drove it for a few days and went back to them with a complaint of a vibration. Re-balanced it, sent me down the road. No real difference. Went back; they guy put the wheel and tire on the balancer, and at a low spin speed, you could see the high spot in the tire as it went around. Ordered me a new one; been on the car ever since, for over 10,000 miles. His words: " I can balance a square; doesn't mean it's round".

 

Maybe they see your name on the order form and pick out some good ones, and send the crap to us peons.

 

Coker quality control seems to change every so often…are they now in another slump?

 

I believe 16" Firestone tires are the sizes that is typically problematic. All I can say is the tire shavings at the bottom of the tire shaver didn't lie. Before shaving, car was almost undrivable at speeds 50-55 miles per hour. After shaving, the issue went away.

 

Mark, I always had bad luck with their 560-15 Coker Classics. These seem to be the worst. Close second were the L78-15 Coker Classics. Shaving made them round finally. I also have BF Goodrich silvertowns on my 56, these are running smooth but are pretty old, I have no idea if they were already made by Coker. I have "new " ( 2018) 640-15 and 820-15 Firestones on my 40 Ford and 560-15 and 750-15s on my 34 Ford, also from 2018, both sets balanced well and are running smooth. My guess is , the Coker Classics are the ones that need the most shaving. My Riviera is running on Goodyear Power Cushions, the car is vibration free up to 120 mph. I´m happy my friend Tom found an old tire shaving machine so we can take care of wobbly tires in the future . But it sure hurts to see all that expensive tread on the ground ...

 

My 15” Firestones have all be ok. I have no experience with the 16”. I do agree that this must have been an issue in the past or a tire shaving machine would have never been needed.

I was pretty excited about the Kelsey tires until I saw the price. That pretty much killed it for me.

 

Dang, these days a lot of folks wanna shave everything........why not tires too?

 

Any updates?

 

not yet, been pretty busy getting the Rambler going. The sky's clearing up some, maybe I'll head over to Bisbee in the red car and see how it does.

I'll let you all know...