My '26 Modified has Coker Firestone Deluxe Champion "pie crust" bias ply tires. The 6.50 rears like to hop at lower speeds and the quickchange gears amplify the hop. The fronts are 4.50-4.75 16 and do OK till about 50+ then the want to bounce thru 65mph which makes the car no fun at higher speeds. I have contacted a fellow, well known around town for tire shaving @ $35 a tire and then I will have to have them rebalanced so I will have about $190 in them. I would like to have a set of Excelsior's but that would be well over a grand. No matter what I do the car is not going to drive like a Cadillac anyway! Your thoughts or experience?? Sent from my SM-N900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I have the same problem with my 4/50-4/75 Cokers. I'm looking for a shop to true/shave mine around here. So I personally would have them shaved and see how they perform before buying Excelsiors, but then I don't particularly like the looks of Excelsiors because of all the sidewall markings. Mick
Call Coker, they should not be allowed to sell tires that are not useable. They have a history of out of round and unbalanceable tires. EDIT The OP just posted that the tires are 10 years old. This pretty much renders what I said as useless. It would be nice to get all the facts the first time around.
Could be part of the problem, but they are 10 years old but only have 1151 miles on them! Sent from my SM-N900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
OK, let me be first (I have the flak-suit on top of my already thick skin). There's just sooooo much wrong with the engineering, or lack of, with this ??? that I wouldn't even know where to start a list that long, but I'm pretty sure "truing", "shaving (waxing ?)" or replacing tires with another brand or style ain't going to do damn bit of good. "Butch" P.S. I've been running Deluxe Champions on my roadster (and many other vintage cars) for nearly three decades now and gone through several sets in that time, yet never had a problem with them I could blame on tire design or quality. Just this weekend I drove another 855 miles with a set on my Roadster that already have been driven over 7K miles in past 14 months. Drove on various road conditions, - types ranging from rough and twisty high altitude 2-lane mountain passes to concrete "freeways" and at times, speeds in excess of 75mph. Not a single tire problem.
WOW! Bitchin' mod! Shaving to true an assembly is for an out of round assembly. Are the rims round or do they have radial run out? Have the assemblies been checked for total combined run out? Have tires been rotated 180° on the rims to try and minimize total run out? What is the runout? If the tire needs truing, why cut off more tread than necessary? Does Coker have a standard for runout in order to warranty? Also, speed specific wheel hop is normally an out of balance condition at that speed range. Were the tires and wheels balanced on or off the car? You might try spin balancing on the car with a strobe balancer and see if you get the hop at a specific RPM. You need to balance tire, wheel, drum and hub if you want perfection. Balancing at that speed, however, may not be correct at another speed. Make sure tires are warmed up and not allowed to sit before hand. Nylon tires flat spot as they cool down, and will give you false run out readings. Just my experience from 35 years in the tire business, FWIW. You can't assume anything with bias ply tires.
Some guys have all the luck......I'm the guy that if there's 1000 nuts in a bin I'll pick the one with no threads. And all the shaving machines that existed in the past are just fake and a moneymaker for the garage. You have just been fortunate TTR and perhaps your tire sizes aren't the ones with problems.
I've tried the beads in my turd tires (which I love by the way) and they are better turds. Up to 68 mph is much smoother after that some shaking still exists. What I have done that is not a recommendation by the bead companies is run the beads with the weights still on. I have a weight removal tool on back order and will see if removing them makes it better...but I repeat 4 ounces of antique auto type beads made quite a positive difference.
Nope. But I understand what you're saying. Bias tires have always had a greater chance of being out of round than the more precisely mfg'd radials. They can also used to true a tire tread that's cupped out from running out of balance. The customer doesn't have to buy a tire just yet (but most dealers want to sell tires, don't they)
I was being a wee tad sarcastic HotrodA......I have the condition they correct. Just read TTR's post my statement was in reference to.
Works just fine, no side to side movement that is detectable, I was concerned about that also but this is my 3rd Modified sprung like this. Sent from my SM-N900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I think there's a lever type shock being run...you can see it on the front suspension pic with the drilled holes. Oh by the way @modified cool Hotrod...
This is the dilemma a lot of us face older tires, second or third owner warranty gone but tons of tread left. My way of thinking with the beads is even if installed before shaving they would still provide balance as even if outside is round the internal structure of the tire is still irregular. What I am saying is if I find a Tire Shaver Service I will still try that.
No, I'm not saying "shaving machines" are fake. Their existence and very real reason of being was to correct poorly made and maintained tires on vehicles owned/operated by (usually cheap) individuals not willing to spend their money wisely and/or without ability to wait for new or quality replacements. Of course, this was loooong (decades) ago when access to quality tires used on daily driving operations were much more difficult and not mandated by government (DOT, etc) regulations, so that any Manny Moe and Jack could produce tires of questionable quality. I seriously doubt any manufacturer today is able or willing to do that, especially if producing them for specialty applications like collectible vintage vehicles. My bottom line still is that any one with half a sense of automotive chassis experience should be able to see countless things wrong with OPs "ride" design, no matter how cool it and other like it may look on magazine spreads. Besides, I've only been building/restoring vintage cars for 40+ years (30 or so professionally), not to mention driving, so WTF do I know...
It's very good of Coker to stand by thier product by replacing defective unbalenceable tires but again many of us have tires that could be corrected by what is now a rare entity in the tire business. I can't take my tires back...I'm third owner and warranty is gonzo. The beads did improve the ride again noticeably what conventional and roadforce did not. I am just exhausting the avenues before I replace. Beads again are not really a new technology either. Coker is providing a vintage tire made in a vintage way so the problems that existed then will exist now. TTR you rack up quite the miles on your Bias Ply equipped Hotrod and I never question your experience however these Vintage tires even though new are now very expensive so when we have a non warranty tire through purchase that may be correctable through a vintage process or a newer hidden remedy it's worth a look.
I think Corky has it figured out from a business and marketing plan. He owns the molds. He knows from experience the likelihood of a percentage of bias tires being out of round for a variety of reasons, all manufacturing related. He also knows that the vintage car market will buy his product to look correct first, with performance second. Like all manufacturers, he has an "acceptable", to him, percentage of customer problems. Zero isn't it. The only cure for this is the market. Sales, or lack of them, drives the correction, even to pull the low sellers from the line. As a privately owned company, we the customer will never know the figures. So.....you buy them, but you play roulette as to the quality. And in roulette, the house has the odds. Sorry, I got long winded and forgot about the 1000 other Coker posts.
No reason we can't mask some of the problems that exist with the non returnable...my improvement was marked. Perfect...nope...still experimenting yup. Lever shocks.
Springs are stiff enough to stop side to side motion. Sent from my SM-N900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
They are about 10 years old but with only 1151 miles on them I want to try something before I give up on them, they still look great! Sent from my SM-N900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Maybe try a set of wheels and tyres off someones driver and see what it does. Maybe not that easy to find someone you know with the 5 x 51/2 pattern it looks like you probably have, but would at least narrow it down to either wheel/tire or suspension related problem.
Thanks for all of your support! Maybe I should take it to the wrecking yard? Sent from my SM-N900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I've made an appointment to have my tires shaved and spin balanced and if that's not enough the beads are next! Sent from my SM-N900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app