I always see in ads for porta walls that they are not recomended for radial tires.I was wondering why.Is it because of the higher temperatures radials create in the side wall or because the side walls are a bit softer than bias ply and the bulge on sidewall may effect tire balance at higher speeds.Am i way off on all these thoughts?I recently bought new tires for my car and just couldnt afford to cough up the $900.00 dollars for cokers,so i bought some black walls.Grinding in the whites is out of the question.I bought some of the white wall die off ebay and tried it on an old tire.It looks ok.Kind of, but i recommend spraying it rather than brushing it on.I live in the desert this is my daily driver and i drive my car everywhere.Often over a thousand miles one way.Does any one have any advice?Should i forget the porta wall idea?
It's the "flex" of the Radial sidewall. And yes,forget the "Porta-Walls" Here's a couple threads for you. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=382473&highlight=painting+whitewalls http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8249
We had port-a-walls on a '62 VW 'vert once and drove it in the snow. Looked like something out of Mad Max coming at ya. Snow packed in behind the fake whitewall and got about 6" thick.
Many years ago, had a porta wall held on by a hubcap only(in a hurry) come off as I was cruising the local hot spot!! Man was that embarrassing.............
I had porta walls on radials on my 54 when i bought it. It is the most wrong thing ive every seen! Do not under any circumstance, henceforth, even consider doing it. Blackwall radials will still look better than a feeble attempt at white walls. Of course, this is only my opinion, if you really want to then go for it.
I'm actually curious what hack came up with port-a-walls in the first place. We have an expensive hobby by design, tires are not that expensive. Either buy true white walls or none at all....and as for people using grinders to make blackwalls into white walls...don't even get me started. Think of it this way...you can pay a little more up front to get exactly what you want, or you can pay a lot more down the road trying to make it what you want, and still having it not be quite right, and eventually doing it twice. Pay a little more to do it right, be done with it. By the time you bought the blackwall radials, bought the port-a-walls, done whatever you do to join the two, cussed at it a bit, and had them fly off at high speed, or had someone point out at a show that your port-a-wall was hanging halfway off because it's not really part of the tire.....did you really save anything? As for why it's not recommended, I can only speculate as you have. Probably due to differences in tire construction. It's probably also because when you combine wide white wall, and radial tire.....you get something that looks like ass.
I bought my first car in 1962 earning $1.00 an hour. I can remember porta walls looking like a good idea. Guess you had to be there.
Well I was... I bought porta walls (the new thin white wall type) baby moons and beauty rings for my first car a 58 Plymouth 2 dr ht. before I could get insurance and tags back from the state. I hate to break it to you but porta walls are as traditional 50s hop up as 97 carbs, lakes pipes and finned valve covers. That's all we could afford so they have a special spot for some of us. We found some cheap ones at Hershey several years ago. We wore them around our necks as we continued to shop. It was amazing how many people stopped us remembered them from the 50s and wanting to know where we found them.
Thanks Tommy. Thought I was the only one that thought porta walls worked. At the time, all I could afford. And yes, I was running baby moons as well.
I bought some 14 inch tires that had port a walls on them. The guy had a pt loser that they were on. I figured at some point I will put them on a trailer and that wouldn't be to bad.
I've had them on a couple of cars with good luck, but I agree, nothing looks worse than crooked protowalls flappin' in the wind. The key is getting them on straight and seated on the rim good - it's a lot of trial and error. Another 'trick' is a tire that's a little wide for the wheel it's on - it tends to push out on the portawall a little more evenly. Here's a picture of my F100, it had RWL Hoosier radials and wagon wheels on it when I got it. I bought smoothies mounted the tires BW out. A friend gave me a set of portowalls so I figured why not. I had several people look it over very close and tell me they didn't know Hoosier made a wide white.
Expensive by design? only if you throw money at it like a gold chainer. parts can be had for cheap if you pay attention and are on the lookout. labor is cheap when you do it yourself. "Paying more upfront to get exactly what you want" is the gold chainer anthem lol
I ran them on my truck for a while. This was before they made the radial wide whitewalls. They worked. Well except for the flying off at 80 mph. I put a lot of miles on mine and they did scuff the sidewall of the tire like mentioned above but I don't think it was a lot or unsafe. The flying off at 80 mph was a problem for me happened a lot. On one trip to Columbus OH I lost one of the porta wall. It looked goofy so I just pulled the other one off that side. drove people crazy. Clark
I had a really witty, sarcastic, and cutting response to this (I'm older, smarter, and have plenty of gold chains and Jordasche jeans left over from the 70's, when I was busy building hot rods, oops, "Street Rods", which are so despised now that I'm an object of derision) but I'm over it now... Brian (get your own gold chains) McCool
Thankyou very much to everyone for your input.It kept me entertained.Ill stick with my black walls till i get back to work full time.
RIGHT ON when i was in high school every car in the school lot had porta walls no one could buy real white walls or new tires
i ran porta walls on this buick for ten years drove it alot they were bias ply tires in fact the tires wore out and i reused the porta walls on the new tire .. hints they work on bias plys only they need to be put on a wet bead making mounting tricky to get on correctly trying to get them on tires with tubes compounds the trickiness lay them on your tires before mounting if they do not " lay with " the sidewall they will not stay seated yup they are way cheaper than real www i used em and had good luck of coarse finding used bias ply tires was ez in the 80's .. i can't even find any tall 15 inch used tires of any kind today let alone bias plys ... maybe some trailer tires are still around ????
Porta-walls have thier place. I ran them on the rear of my 34 years ago before anyone was reproducing the old style slicks with whitewalls. Since the sidewall on the old M&H's were very ridgid, they worked fine.
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