Reproduction Parts for 1916-1964 Chevrolet Passenger Cars & 1918-1987 Chevrolet & GMC Trucks


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#450754 11/23/20 12:34 AM
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We have made great progress on my friend’s 3100. The painted truck is fully assembled and runs well.

The one major item left is wheels and tires. I have done quite a few searches. Obviously there are lots of ideas and opinions about bias or radial, classic or modern, tubes or tubeless, etc.

I am looking for guidance about tire width in relation to wheel width. The owner’s preference is to run a set of modern radial tires on the stock wheels.

The original 6.00 x 16 tire has about 6.8” section width. That translates to about 175 mm. The limitation is that there are almost no 16” tires in that width. The few that I can find do not have enough land capacity and are too small in diameter.

One other limitation we have is that we cannot handle much if any diameter increase due to the garage door height

From a practical standpoint how wide a modern radial tire can be used on the standard 16x4 wheel? My concern is the distortion of the tire profile and crowning of the tread due to the narrow bead width.



Rusty

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What you want doesn't exist anymore in the USA. 195-80r16 matches 600-16 pretty close and was made by Yokohama and Bridgestone until fairly recent times, but as near as I can tell all are discontinued. Your current options in radial are DIamondback and Coker. Both are expensive.

Additionally, Blockley (in the UK) make an M&S 205r16 for older Range Rovers that might not be too bad on a truck. Those are also expensive. I believe they will ship to USA. However, it is almost an inch taller than a typical 600-16.

If you happened to be in Australia or New Zealand there could be tires for Toyota Hilux that might work.



bloo #450762 11/23/20 06:01 AM
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Down here in Aus the early Toyota Land Cruiser and some of the Hilux wheels had the same stud pattern as 6 stud Chev but were 4.5" or 5" wide, the other difference being the centre hole on the Toyota wheel is a lot larger than Chev.
Tony


1938 1/2 ton Hope to drive it before I retire
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If cost is not an issue there are reproduction wheels by Wheels Vintique I think they are called. You can pick the width and get hubcaps that are a pretty good reproduction.


My 1951 1 Ton is now on the road! My 38 Master 4 Door is also now on the road .
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I have a 551st 3100 I took my rims to wheel shop and had the centers installed in a 6" wide by 16" rim . I now run 6-50 16 Diamondback Auburn radials with on tubes and it works great. I now can use my original hub caps too.

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We knew there were lots of options if we wanted to look for new wheels or band the existing wheels. Cost was a major consideration.

We installed General Grabber HD 195/70 - 16 tires on the 4" rims. We would have preferred a 185 section tire but could not find one with a reasonable outside diameter that would fill the opening in the fenders.

There is some crown to the tread and the sidewall bulge is more noticeable than you normally see. It could be an issue on a truck that would see lots of highway miles.

We are pleased with the results and feel they will work great for Steve, the owner.

If we could find an inexpensive set of 4 1/2" rims from a later model Advanced Design truck we would consider swapping the tires to them. That extra 12 mm of wheel width would improve the fit quite a bit.

Thanks for the help.


Rusty

VCCA #44680

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