Time to stir the pot... Bought a set of Coker Excelsior radials when I put my truck together, and they've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-7,000 miles on them now. I notice often while driving around that the tire noise is terribly loud, and it doesn't seem to matter what the road surface is like. I've been on fresh pavement, old pavement, you name it, and still noisy - better on some surfaces than others. Looking at the tires, there's no uneven wear, the tires are balanced pretty well with a bit of a shimmy kicking in around 70, so I keep it under that most days. Tubes installed (wire wheels), pressure 34-36. Anyone have a thought?
I've wondered how the aggressive tread pattern could not be noisy, but other users always tell me they are not noisy. Have you tried dropping air pressure to 28 to 30 area? Phil
Stir the pot? Excelcior radials do not have an aggressive tread pattern, I really like the look. Mine run exceptionally smooth and quiet on my RPU on steel wheels without tubes. 34-36 psi is too much. I think that if you can hear your tires then your exhaust is too quiet
Tire manufacturers go to great lengths to "tune" the road noise their tires make on various vehicles. Some do this more successfully than others. If you are getting "too much noise" from the tires in a hot rod application, I agree with Blue One above: "If you can hear your tires, your exhaust is too quiet." A hot rod is not a Lexus. Deal with it.
I feel like this exact thread has been done a time or two. Always ends up being the original posted thinks the are loud and 50 people say theirs are just fine. does sound like a shit load of air pressure for an early car though. What have you got them on?
Hello, When radials came out from different manufacturers, some of them had little arrows pointing in the direction of roll. They were hard to see and close to the metal rim. There were even high speed Z rated Pirellis that had tread patterns that required mounting in the correct way. Those tires always got balanced, but were never cross rotated from side to side. If the tires were the same size and the owner wanted to rotate them, then front to back was the method to keep the tread pattern going in the right direction. Those Z rated high speed Pirellis did not have a aggressive tread pattern, but required them to be mounted following the arrow direction. Jnaki The only other thing is to get the tires "trued" for roundness. Then balanced well. There should not be any shimmy at 70 mph. A wheel alignment is mandatory. Then in your old car, you might need to have them balanced on the car, if they still do that. When we bought our 2nd 327 powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery, it had old tires on it and the handling/ride was awful. We took it to our wheel and alignment guy that we have been going to for many years. He took it for a couple of days and when we got back to his shop, it ran so smoothly, we thought it was a new car and not a 30 year old hot rod. He did everything mentioned above. Your case may be completely different, but it sounds very close to ours back then. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/lets-have-our-own-80th-anniversary-event-for-the-40-ford.962971/page-163#post-13397867 NOTE: In 1966, I had a 1965 El Camino. I had just purchased a new set of wide, Inglewood Red Striped tires for my car/truck. The tires were wide, the handling improved as if I were stuck to the ground, but it made a funny noise from the dealer's shop back to our Long Beach house. I called around and the first thing was a tire true machine shop. They must have left at least 100 miles worth of rubber on the floor, but at the end, they were round and ready for some balancing. When the balancing shop got done with their act, the El Camino ran smoothly, quietly and handled like a sports car. Everything was great, except for hydro-planning with the wide tires. That is another story.
I personally don't care for multi pattern tire designs like above. Its like the designer couldn't decide which tread pattern to use so they said "hell with it!" and used them all. To me these styles tend to be noiseier and weird wear patterns. Straighter tread designs are usually quieter and wear better....
That isn't possible on the HAMB, we never repeat ourselves. That isn't possible on the HAMB, we never repeat ourselves.
You still hear that well? I always thought some of the rattles went away, but I had to lear it was my hearing ...
Yep, My sport is Bonneville. So I guess you are right! Ha! You don't worry about tread pattern when they are caked with salt!
Looked at the various Excesior tire/treads. I wouldn't call the tread aggressive but they are quite blocky with wide enough gaps. It's going to be a bit buzzy. Not rock crawler/mudder tire noisy, but louder than a typical modern car radial. Check your front wheel bearings for correct bearing take-up. With the wheel in the air, rock the wheel at the 12 & 6 position, if you feel any slack in the bearing, usually a minute click or sometimes it may feel like clay, remove the dust cap/cotter pin and tighten up the nut til there is no more slack, don't kill the bearing just snug up the nut til you cannot rock the wheel. Most tapered bearing instructions are just arbitrary... 'tighten to nlbft with wheel spinning, stop wheel, back off nut 1/2 turn, tighten finger tight.' That will give an inconsistent preload. Take up the clearance and go for a drive. Check the tires sidewall max Psi rating. If it is 51Psi, then you may want to up the pressure to 40(cold) and go for a drive. It may not fully reduce the noise, but it may minimize it. Every tire is different and even radials from a few years ago are different from todays radials. Play around with the pressure til you get a more satisfactory sound/feel from the tire. If you are not an aggressive driver, you can get away with higher pressures for smoother rolling, but a higher pressure does lessen the contact patch and removes the give in the carcass. A tire, including radials, deform at the contact patch. Lower pressures can increase grip but cause more rolling resistance, higher pressures reduce rolling resistance at the cost of grip. Watch the tread for wear, it it will let you know if you are running over/under inflated tires. Ignore the outer portion of the shoulder blocks on the front tires, those will always show wear that may be miscontrued as under inflated. Look at the center 2/3s of the tread. If that is square you are about dead nuts. Tires usually have about five rows of tread across the width. If the center three are wearing evenly then you are doing good.
Definitely noisy, Phil, I'll confirm. I've run it with less air, though I didn't measure it, just knew they were all low... in fairness, I don't think it's the pressure, I'm much more inclined to put it on the tread design. Just because it's a hot rod doesn't mean you don't fix things that need fixing. This ain't no rat rod show. I do too, but couldn't find the first 50 covering this, so here we are. They're on my 35 Ford pickup. All good info, Jnaki. There's one last shop by me that does on-car balancing. I'll have to take it over there and see if they can get rid of that shimmy. 95% sure it's just out of balance.
Thanks, Mike. Some good info here. I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade, so I'm familiar with everything you posted up. I can verify my bearings are good (greased and reinstalled last weekend) and my tires are wearing even, so I'm inclined to point toward the tread style. I like to keep them inflated up for just the reason you stated - lower rolling resistance and better gas mileage since I drive it near every day. I'll have to mess around some more and see what I come up with. Sounds like I'm going to get a 50/50 on loud vs not here. One thing I always forget is volume is subjective, and "loud" to me, isn't necessarily "loud" to the other guys with these tires.
It’s a hot rod I wouldn’t worry about it. I have two beaters and one nice car they all have something that sort of bugs me but I chalk it up to driving a Hotrod. If I wanted total comfort I’d drive the daily driver.
I think you’d nailed it with the subjective thing. Sometimes I think I’m quick to call a noise the car makes loud when really it’s just a funny tone or pitch and I wish I couldn’t hear it at all. the other day I had a noise that was just eating me up. I was certain it was new and it was now all I could hear. on the drive home I decided to focus on listening to a different noise the car makes that I know it always makes, the way the exhaust sounds on this particular route, and wouldn’t you know it I didn’t notice my “new” noise a single time.
I accomplished getting a rolling eyes symbol with my comment that if you can hear the tires then your exhaust is too quiet. For my RPU and I suspect a number of other open hot rods I think that will be accurate. Along with exhaust and wind noise my Winters quick change makes a sound of its own. Tire noise ? What tire noise ?
The issue boils down to personal sensitivities. If you love having your senses abused, drive a highboy roadster. If you prefer quiet, windless, smell-less, sunburn-less, splash-less, air-conditioned comfort, do not drive a roadster. I, for one, will never go back to closed cars because I truly like all my senses being truly alive as they are in a fenderless hot rod roadster. The whine of the tires is just a small part of the overall bliss. A modern convertible doesn't even come close. If I'm not getting beaten up I'm just not having fun!
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