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Bias ply driveability

955 views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  fishnhunt 
#1 ·
I'm seriously considering about buying a set of 34X10.5R16 Swamper LTB's, but I'm wondering if these tires will be safe for a 1500km road trip that I'll be taking at the end of the summer back home.

I can deal with flat spots, and not being able to talk to people at highway speeds (sure the car pool will love em), but I need something that can go for a long time safely.. Drive to work is 60km roundtrip, and I only have to do it every third working day..

Don't really mind poor millage, just want traction, and that is the perfect size tire for me.

Thanks for any info
 
G
#2 ·
I have the 38/13/16's now (which measure exactly 36" tall
) Anyway, I have yet to balance mine becasue the only tire dude in town can't do it. What I'm gonna do is chuck about a pound of bb's in each tire for centrifical balancing force fun.

Anywho, my point is, I've been driving to school and work on these everyday, unbalanced. The traction on road and off is great, and I haven't siped them all yet either! The vibration for the first week was horrible you're-gonna-swerve-into-a-semi-and-die kinda thing, but after that, they smoothed out to a nice even ride, if still jittery enough to make my POS cd player not work, but it never did anyway.

Yeah they are fine tires, get them balanced and siped and 90% of the negatives of the tires will die away screaming and cursing the name of RJ the sipemaster. Yeah, something like that. Blahhhhhhhhhhh.........
 
#3 ·
A speck of dirt over the life of a tire will turn into the size of a marble because it slowly picks up rubber from the inside of the tire. I've got some of these infamous marbles in my collection, the biggest one is about 3/4". Now talking about a balancing nightmare.

If anything, I'd think the pound of metal rattling around in your tire would make it worse. Let us know if you do it though, I'd like to know.
 
G
#4 ·
Well, it seems a LOT of the guys at the Pirate BBS put bb's and golf balls in their bias tires because nothing else will really balance them. I can see where ONE or TWO little balls of rubber would screw up balance, but mine are over a pound of on each tire and any extra bb's or "rubber marbles" will balance out over the interior surface of the tire to give a vauge sense of not driving a dumptruck over washboard roads. Like I said, it seems to work well for the pirate guys.
 
#5 ·
Olt timers used to use strips of rubber glued to the inside of the tire to balance their bias ply tires. We're talking 1/2" thick horse stall mat kind of rubber not that girly stuff inner tubes are made out of.

I've also heard of something as goofy as people putting water in their tires to compensate also but I think that'd be as bad as BB's or rubber bouncing balls.


you know what they say about yoopers (people from the UP of michigan)? "you're a yooper if the only way you can balance your tires is by cutting lugs off".
 
#7 ·
Well, I'm not a Physics major. However, you would think that because of the forces involved that the spot that is "heavy" in the tire will get more weight (maybe not exactly at that point but right next to it) because it is the "cavity" the items are going to try to fill.

I, myself, trust something that is static rather than dynamic and boucing around in my tire.
 
#8 ·
MyAP physics prof. here at Michigan State is the director of the Nation Super-Conducting Cyclotron Laboratory here. he;'s so high uop you can;t go to his office hours because its in a restricted area...anyways, moral of the story is this guy knows his physics sh!t. I"ll ask him and se what he has to say about it next time i get a chance
 
#9 ·
That type of balancing would work great as long as you were driving on a straight, flat and smooth road. But the first time you hit a bump hard enough all the bb's or H2O will come tumbling down and the tire will be way off balance. It will rebalance it's self but it would soon happen again. Then when you went around a turn the centrifical force would change and the bb's all move to one side of the tire or the other. It might not even balance right at all because the tires don't always run straight up and down. Imange what would happen to those bb's when your going slow or through mud I bet they would act like sand paper and wear out the inside of the tire really quickly (Dangerous).
 
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