Packard Forum Index » General

Hey guys, does anyone happen to know if G78 x 15 tires fit well on a 53 Clipper?? Im trying to figure out if these tires will look right on my '53.

Can anyone give a suggestion??

Thanks
Elias

In general if you want the right appearance, then get the correct tire size. But that said, G78-15 is a close approximation of 7.60x15 which would be correct for your car. You can look up the dimensional differences in most of the collector car manufacturer's catalogs.

I had a set of G78-15s on my 48 Custom 8 which should have had 8.20x15 and they performed well though were a bit undersize, though not enough that you're eye was drawn to it. I'd think a more significant factor as to whether they "look right" will be the whitewall width if you're going to whitewalls. The reason I bought the G-78 tires (this was back in the 80s) was that the letter-series tires were priced more attractively than the correct size.

Thank you. I agree with you. These tires are definitely priced right. That is why I'm very attracted to them. And the white wall width looks perfect.

Thanks for the info.

Mine were Dunlops, tubeless and mounted w/o tubes. One of the more noteworthy things I remember about those tires is that year-in and year-out, they almost never lost any air pressure - if they took a bit of air 5 times over 20 years that was a lot. Towards the end they developed the usual cracks in the carcass between the treads, and steering gradually required more and more effort. All in all, they gave great service.

Good to know. It's a 3in white wall and it's 4 ply. So hopefully they give the same service.

Thanks

I put a set of lightly used but older L78 15 tires on my 54 Cavalier. They seem to work ok but the tire pressure is critical and a couple of pounds too high harden's up the ride quite a bit.

The original tire size would have been 7.80X15 which crosses to the L78X15 which is slightly wider.

The car has to be jacked quite high to change a rear tire as most of the tire has to be below the opening in the rear fender and of course the skirt has to be off.

I don't want to use a bumper jack should I ever have to change a tire so I'm looking for a scissors jack the will lift the frame high enough.

I thought possibly the original tire would have been narrow enough to clear.

I am running tubeless.

Jim

Many of these cars have shocks that are a tad short and don't let the axle drop enough.

I'm not too fond of letter series tires on Packards for two reasons. The one is getting them under the rear fender, as noted. The second is that these broad shouldered tires seem to make the cars more prone to wander. The 7.60 and 8.00 15s generally have a much narrower profile and the cars steer better with no loss of cornering ability. Now, I am a huge fan of radials but have found that the bias ply tires from Universal and the Coker Classics work well. Other brands of bias tires don't seem to have a fraction of the cornering ability I remember good bias tires having 30+ years ago.

I'm looking for tires right now for my '48 Super Eight, and according to the original literature, it came with 7.60-15 bias ply tires. My car now has some 27 year old L78-15s with standard whitewalls, and the tires are too big.

I'm going to go with radials, mainly because of the stability and ride.

I just got a price for the Diamondback Wide Whites from Fritz Tire, who is a distributor for Diamondback. Fritz quoted $1080 to my door in Florida for the Diamondback II Extra Wide Whites, 225/75R15 with the 3-3/8" whitewall.

Diamondback uses tires from several manufacturers and vulcanizes the whitewall to the existing tire. Their prices are better than Coker, who doesn't have a tire in this size with this wide a whitewall.

When I bought the 54 Cavalier last fall the L78-15's on it had what looked like bad under inflation wear. The tread was bald on either side to about 1 ? inches remaining in the center.

The car had an annoying wander and liked to follow almost invisible ruts in the road.

The play in the steering box is there but not horrendous. The king pins have a bit of movement and I have a new set but haven't done the deed yet. My car now has 79,000 miles which I believe to be accurate and original as I have all of the receipts for everything back to 1954 and they have mileage noted.

I bought this set of older wide whites L78-15 (Can't remember the brand, Commander or something) which have almost new looking tread. The tires that were on the car if new when it was restored in the mid 1990's probably had gone 10,000 miles.

I have run the car about 1500 miles since I put the new tires on and only have slight wander and don't see wear yet.

I had planned to go for totally new tires after the budget recovers.

With about 29 pounds cold the road vibration is OK, the wander is only slightly noticeable on really rutted roads, cornering is a little soft. I don't know how tight a 4,000 pound car will corner, no power steering on my car.

So I am interested in this tire conversation.

Jim

I replaced the tires on my 48 Custom 8 with G78s because the Dunlops I had on the car served me wll for 5 years and the previous owner for about 20 years.Its a tight fit in the back.You will not get them on inflated.