Tire question 1968

[Patrick]

Thanks for the info and the comp SatelliteMan

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

SatelliteMan, what wheels in back?

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum and I know the last post was awhile ago, but I have a couple questions for Satelliteman -

I'm also looking at the Telstar wheels - they look nice on the front of your car, but what wheels are on the back? They don't look like Telstars to me from the side view.

I've only had my 68 Satellite for a year and the previous owner already had chrome smoothies on (the dog dish style) with 215/65/15's on front and 245/60/15 on back. I'm defintely changing out the 215's for either 225/60/15 or 235/60/15 and I'm not decided yet on the back. What I'm wondering is, do different tire manufacturers have different tire tread widths for the same size? I haven't done a tire to tire measurement comparison on tread width, but my 245's in the back sure look as wide as some of the 275's I've seen and when I saw Satelliteman's 295's in the photo, they didn't look much wider than my 245's. Right now my rears are cheapie white letter Remington's. I want to upgrade to Firestone Firehawk Indy 500's. I've read many other posts that claim the max size tires that will fit this car are 275/60 in back and 235/60 in front, but Satelliteman has pulled off 295's and it looks really good!

I'm unsure of the wheel widths or backspacing on either my front or back since I didn't install them and the backside of the wheels is covered with dirt and rust. I guess I have to remove the tires to get accurate wheel measurments?

Any advice?

 

[moparstuart]

welcome

 

[SatelliteMan]

68SS
The wheels on the rear of my car are Telstars. They are 15X10 with 5" backset (or rear spacing). I think when it's time to buy rear tires I'll go with 275/60-15. They are slightly taller and will fill up the wheelwell better (looking at the car from the side). Also they will be less likely to rub. The 295's occasionally rub, for instance, when negotiating a steep driveway with a dip at the bottom. Fyi the BFG 295/50-15 on my car have about a 10" tread width. I've got 245/60-15's on 15X8's with 4" backset on the front and they look the right height, they have about an 8" tread width. In my opinion the tread width should be approximately the same as the rim width. Now you know the method to my madness.
SM

Welcome to the forum too!

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

Thanks Satelliteman

Satelliteman,

Thanks for all of the detailed info. That's exactly what I needed. I agree with your tire-to-wheel width ratio recommendation. From all of the cars that I've seen with the tire/wheel combos that I like, the tire width spec is around 2-inches wider than the wheel. Any more than 2.5" wider or much less than 2-inches doesn't look as good. For example, the 215's on my front 7 inch wheels look a tad too narrow. The 225's or 235's should look good. If I go to 275's I think I will upgrade my wheel width from 8-inch to 9-inch and if I keep it at 8-inch I will go from 245 to 255.

Thanks!

 

[SatelliteMan]

68SS
I was going back through the thread and got to looking at YELLOW68RUNNER's car. In the first pic it looks like he has stock type and size wheels/tires front & rear. In the second pic obviously he has the 275/60-15's on 8" wide wheels on the rear that he mentions. His 3-3/4" backset looks about perfect and would work good for me. About 1-1/2" taller and only about an inch narrower than my setup. Looks Good YELLOW68RUNNER!!

I may have to do something sooner rather than later because I'm in the process of restoring the rear axle, suspension, etc. When I'm done it will be lowered slightly, I'm hoping for 1 to 1-1/2 inches. So we'll see how bad the rubbing is then. It'll have stiffer than stock springs, shocks and a rear swaybar so maybe it won't rub too bad.

The moral of this story is that I'd recommend the 275/60-15's on 15x9's. You WILL of course do some careful measuring before you buy, my car has a non-original rear axle in it so the wheels you end up needing might be a different backset than mine. Motto: measure 2 or 3 times, buy once.

Good luck, and how about some pictures of your car, I'm always interested in seeing what others are working on.

SM

 

[morbidgoat]

i got a good deal on my rims and tires $250 for all four with decent tread however do to the rim, i have to have the car jacked in the rear. anyway rims are american racing with mickey thonmpson indy profile n-50's in rear not sure the offset of my rims but looking at my tires on car the 50's would fit in my well if the rims were in 2" wich i do have on the back side

 

[moparstuart]

i got a good deal on my rims and tires $250 for all four with decent tread however do to the rim, i have to have the car jacked in the rear. anyway rims are american racing with mickey thonmpson indy profile n-50's in rear not sure the offset of my rims but looking at my tires on car the 50's would fit in my well if the rims were in 2" wich i do have on the back side

cool 69 more pictures please

 

[morbidgoat]

its actually a 69 gtx its still in progress hence the yellow primer i do have more pics but i figured they didnt pertain to this thread. im only a 26 year old kid with not alot of money but doing what i can with what i got and so far ive come a long way, ill through some more pics up of its current condition since you asked i got it early last summer it was supposed to be a complete car just very much apart, it was more like a rolling chasis in rough shape with some various parts ive had to find or fix almost everthing car is supposed to be auto but converted to 4spd wich i prefer anyway but right now ive got it in storage till spring when ill start working on it again, i hope to paint it early this summer.

 

[MarPar]

Sweet-*** 69 Did the valve covers come with the car?? never seen ones like those before... got working air shocks on her? or is the rear height just from the shackles??

BTW like pepsi do ya?? :rolling::rolling:

 

[morbidgoat]

no the engine in it now is just my temp motor it was a $600 black grease ball when i bought it so i degreased it took it apart put new timing chain and gears scrubbed the heck out of the carb and rebuilt that put all new gaskets in the engineand sprayed it with some hemi orange engine rattle cans from local parts store valve covers have a matching air cleaner that i bought off ebay for like 90 for the set and for the pepsi ya ive got alot of hours working on this so needed some sort of stimulant. and i say temp engine because i have a 440hp long block that i plan on rebuilding and modifying a bit, i have a 550hp goal but that wont be for a few years need to finish the car and get it reliably driveable first as for the rear let me first start by saying the leaf springs under this car were shot with the car on its original tires the leafs almost sat flat not too good so when i put these tires uder it i got the drop shackles and that wasnt enough so i bought these leaf spring helper springs for 40 said they increased load rating by 1500lbs. that got the car to sit off the tires but if you hit a bump tire would rub so i went back to autozone and they had this coilover spring kit that you can add to your shocks so got that for another 40 and now seems ok however i was looking through summit and found new replacement leaf springs for like 110 a side so i ordered them out now but havent installed them yet

 

[roadrunnerman]

you guys got some good lookin' rides.i've got some 295/50/15's under my 69 RR that fill in the wheel well pretty good

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

68SS
I was going back through the thread and got to looking at YELLOW68RUNNER's car. In the first pic it looks like he has stock type and size wheels/tires front & rear. In the second pic obviously he has the 275/60-15's on 8" wide wheels on the rear that he mentions. His 3-3/4" backset looks about perfect and would work good for me. About 1-1/2" taller and only about an inch narrower than my setup. Looks Good YELLOW68RUNNER!!

I may have to do something sooner rather than later because I'm in the process of restoring the rear axle, suspension, etc. When I'm done it will be lowered slightly, I'm hoping for 1 to 1-1/2 inches. So we'll see how bad the rubbing is then. It'll have stiffer than stock springs, shocks and a rear swaybar so maybe it won't rub too bad.

The moral of this story is that I'd recommend the 275/60-15's on 15x9's. You WILL of course do some careful measuring before you buy, my car has a non-original rear axle in it so the wheels you end up needing might be a different backset than mine. Motto: measure 2 or 3 times, buy once.

Good luck, and how about some pictures of your car, I'm always interested in seeing what others are working on.

SM

Satelliteman,

Thanks for the added info. Yes, I was thinking 9-inch wide rears also for the 275/60/15's. You remind me of a good point. The rear axle is not stock. It's 8-3/4 rear end with newer Dutchman axles. So I would definitely need to measure for correct backspacing. Is that a simple thing to do? Do I just measure off of the outside of the wheel hub in the center to the inside of my fender with a plumb line hanging down? Is that my backspace # or is there a calculation?

As for photos - yes, i'll get those up sometime as soon as I get my car back from my buddy's shop. They're tweaking the suspension when they have time and then I've got to fix a few more issues. I'll post photos hopefully in the next month. Darn rain makes working on it with no garage at my house hit and miss...

---68 Sport Satellite

 

[dodge41969]

If you want the least ammount of hassle with biggest tire, I'd do a 15x8" rim with 4-1/2" backspacing, and a 275/60/15 tire, I had the same on my '69 Road Runner, and had no clearance problems at all , and they looked great, I have the same set-up on my '69 Coronet, as well.

 

[SatelliteMan]

68SS So I would definitely need to measure for correct backspacing. Is that a simple thing to do? Do I just measure off of the outside of the wheel hub in the center to the inside of my fender with a plumb line hanging down? Is that my backspace # or is there a calculation?

68SS - I just left my old wheels and tires bolted on and measured off of those to the outer fender lip and to the inner wheel well. Then I measured the backspacing of the old wheel and made a drawing, to scale, of the old setup. This helped me figure out what backspacing my new 15X10 wheels should have. In my case it turned out that 15X10's with 5" backspacing (zero offset) would center the wheel and tire between the outer and inner sheetmetal. The other day I measured my BFG radial TA 295/50-15 (on 15X10 rim) and found they were 12-5/8" (320mm+) out to out of sidewall . That would explain why It seems like I have a little less clearance than I thought I should have as the tires are about an inch wider than I thought they'd be. Just something else to thing about.

 

[george68hemirr]

if you move in your springs 3 inches inboard and mini tub it you can stuff 31-16.50/15 with a 15x12 rim backspaced 7.5 inches

 

[69Roadrunner69]

295 would be tricky.

I have 275 on my car and I think it´s enough.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

If you want the least ammount of hassle with biggest tire, I'd do a 15x8" rim with 4-1/2" backspacing, and a 275/60/15 tire, I had the same on my '69 Road Runner, and had no clearance problems at all , and they looked great, I have the same set-up on my '69 Coronet, as well.

Dodge 41969 - thanks for the info. I have traction bars on my car that will also affect clearance. Sorry I forgot to mention that. Does your setup have traction bars? With the traction bars there and leaving it stock without doing any mini-tubbing, it looks like I may be limited to 255's. I have 245's on there right now and there doesn't look like there's much more room.

I've got the car back now so I'll post a photo in the next day or two.

--68 Sport Satellite

 

[696pack]

Dodge 41969 - thanks for the info. I have traction bars on my car that will also affect clearance. Sorry I forgot to mention that. Does your setup have traction bars? With the traction bars there and leaving it stock without doing any mini-tubbing, it looks like I may be limited to 255's. I have 245's on there right now and there doesn't look like there's much more room.

I've got the car back now so I'll post a photo in the next day or two.

--68 Sport Satellite

Take them off, not needed on a Mopar, just a pinion snubber.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

Take them off, not needed on a Mopar, just a pinion snubber.

Thanks for that info! I didn't know that. I found a couple of good articles for moparmuscle online and they show an adjustable pinion snubber, but also show installation of cal-tracs on the same car. Why both? I thought Cal-tracs are just a better traction bar? I'm all for removing the traction bars if the pinion snubber will do it alone. I guess I can get one from Summit?