Re: radial tires on antique wheels

Posted by lawrie On 2014/6/26 12:08:02

Good morning. Nearly 3.00 am here. Drizzling rain outside, cold and well past my bedtime.

I was speaking with Packard Pete to-day about radials and tubes on my recently acquired 1954 Clipper. My past experience with tubes fitted to tubeless tyres was not good and may be relevant to this discussion.

I have a Bentley T Coupe which came fitted with Dayton knock-on wires. Because of the leakage through the spoke ends, the radial tyres had to be fitted with tubes. All went beautifully until after a few thousand Km I started getting pinhole punctures in the tubes. No holes in the tyres themselves. One chap down at Beechworth, who fixed one of the punctures for me pointed out that because tubeless tyres are not supposed to have tubes in them they are not necessary smooth inside. The ribs which are very visible on most tubeless and radial tyres eventually wear their way through a tube and especially so in the case of radials which are a lot more flexible in the walls.

After several more pinhole punctures I reluctantly removed the Daytons and went back to the original steel rims with the same tyres fitted minus the tubes. The punctures problem disappeared. And so I deny myself the glory of a Bentley with wires but I spare myself the regular punctures. I am sure the tyre repairer was correct.

When the Packard pulled up lame in the rear right tyre due to a 2 inch nail I noticed for the first time that the tyres, although radials had tubes fitted. I am sure this is a recipe for long term maintenance so I resolved to get rid of the troublesome tubes. My local fitter works on normal cars. When I went to pick up the wheels fitted with my new radials they weren't. The valve stem used on nearly everything on the Australian roads is less than 10mm diameter and the hole in the Packard rim is considerably larger. At his time of the day the workshop where the rims are waiting for new valve stems is locked up so I can't say what the actual diameter of the valve stem hole is in the Packard rim but my guess it could be 5/8 inch which seems to be an alternative which is commercially available.

I go for no tubes for tubeless tyres and especially for radials, and if you decide to do away with the tubes on your Packard make sure you have the correct size valve tubes in tubeless tyrese stems available for the new configuration.

I am both tyred and tired. Good night.

Lawrie