Gas, tires, oil.

When I went to Death Valley last spring, I got a stone bruise on one of my tires on the nasty washboard road to the Racetrack Playa (I was talking to a couple of guys I met at the Eureka sand dunes, and one of them said that he actually saw a couple bolts fall off the front of his old FJ on that road, he couldn’t find them and had to replace them with bolts from somewhere else on his truck). I got it plugged, but I didn’t trust it anymore. Rather than get a new tire, I decided to go to 16″ tires rather than the 15″ tires that were stock on 1/2 ton trucks in ‘82. The main reason is to get more load capacity: the 15″ tires only have a load range C with a weight rating of 1985 lbs. With the whole family and some camping stuff, the suburban is well over 6000 lbs., so it is very near maximum weight for the tires. And I’m pulling a double axle camper trailer. I also wanted taller tires to make up some of the difference in my axle switch (3.42 to 4.11 gears). However, lots of newer model trucks also use 16″ tires on 1/2 ton trucks. This means that some tire sizes are availible in load ranges C, D and E, which means that just going to 16″ is not sufficient. Unfortunately, I can’t use the stock rims 6 lug rims that come on newer chevy trucks because they have too much backspace and hit the tie rod on the older trucks. After lots of searching for used rims, I gave up and ordered a set of Cragar Soft 8 16″x7″ rims from Summit. Then I started seaching for tires. I wanted a set 255-85/16 tires, I had this size (Kelly Springfield MSR) on a 3/4 ton suburban in the past and really liked them. They are 33+” tall but not too wide. Calling around, everyone wanted $650+ for these tires, so I started to look for used on ebay and craigslist. One morning on my way to work I stopped by a local tire shop that sold used tires. The guy didn’t speak english, so after a bit of non-communication he went over to a tahoe parked inside the building and started beating on the side. Eventually a bleary eyed younger guy (his son) opened the door. He apologized for being so hung over and said he couldn’t get out of the truck because of an injury to his foot (I didn’t ask details). So I started looking through the used tires, coming back to roust him up to ask the prices. Eventually I found a set of 295-75/16 bfg ko’s with ok tread. A little wider and shorter than I wanted, but I got the set for $110 (plus $20 for a 265-75/16 for a spare). They fit fine with no lift.

Unfortunately my tire chains will no longer fit, so I’ll have to watch the weather if I want to go over any passes in winter. But these tires have a weight rating of 3415 lbs. so they should have a lot less sway when towing (stiffer side walls) and I’ll be able to air them down a lot more when going offroad. Of course this means having a way of re-inflating them, so I started working on converting the air conditioning compressor to an air compressor, but that’s for another post.