True Turning Radius Measurements

[Steve_382]

Mike,

I posted this on another Tire thread here, but this is what I ordered. Hope I did the right thing. They will be installed on Wednesday this week.


Well, we ordered tires and wheels today for the new van. Since we will be on the road 99% of the time, we went fairly conservative. We won't be doing any hardcore offroad, but would like to get to rough campsites and also have decent snow performance. As you may know, the new Quigleys require 17" wheels to clear the larger brakes that come with the F-350 front axle they install, so we needed to at least go with 17". The hard part was trying to figure out what offset to get for the wheels. Quigley recommends that you stay near the factory offset, but what is that for their conversion? The numbers for a Ford van may not be correct when the front axle is really from an F-350 truck. According to Discount Tire, the factory offset for the F-350 is +45(mm?). You can't really find any wheels that have this offset, so we had to get 0 offset. Does anyone know if this is OK. My understanding is that a 0 offset moves the tire out farther from the van than a +45 does. Correct? That would be about 1.75 inches? How does this compare to what others are using?

Thanks,
Steve

We ordered American Racing wheels 672-7870, 17"x8".

http://asp.americanracing.com/wheelssol ... %20(Chrome)&style=672&desc=1-piece%20chrome%20plated%20alloy%20wheel&section=C


For tires, we stayed with the AT/KO BFG tires and went with 265/70R17 E rated tire.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp? ... n+T%2FA+KO

[MikewTV]

Thanks Steve, I was reading posts out of order yesterday but did see that you'd shared the info. Good luck. Hope it works out for your sake (and eventually mine.)

[Steve_382]

I just thought I would bump this topic back to the recent list to see if anyone actually measured the turning diameter (curb to curb) on their SMB 4x4. My Quigley RB Ford is a little less than 49', which isn't bad I suppose. I can usually get into and out of most parking spots in one try. Sometimes the swithcback trails take a couple tries that a jeep or smaller vehicle would just cruise around.

[jage]

That and weighing it I never seem to remember to get around to.

[Skywagon]

Jage-
I guess it doesn't really matter if you weigh and measure, It is what it is.
Bill
(It's tough being profound AND handsome!)

[geoffff]

OK, because I was just about to go out in the van anyway, I just measured my turning circle: 48 feet

(2004 RB Ford with Sportsmobile 4x4 with 285/75R16 tires)

-- Geoff

[geoffff]

And this happens to be the same as the original stock Ford 2WD E-series van's stated turning circle:

http://www.ford-trucks.com/specs/200...eseries_1.html

The Sportsmobile website now states a 49 foot turning circle for their 4x4 conversion.

[Steve_382]

Originally Posted by geoffff

OK, because I was just about to go out in the van anyway, I just measured my turning circle: 48 feet

(2004 RB Ford with Sportsmobile 4x4 with 285/75R16 tires)

-- Geoff

Thanks Geoff,
I was worried that I was missing the 39' radius mentioned earlier. It's still a big vehicle, but better for what we do than anything else we found.

Steve

[SMBDAD]

In this thread someone has stated that the quigley turning radius is 56' and other state 49'. Which is it?

[Greg In Austin]

I am not sure,..... but they both might be right.... depending on the Size (diameter and width) of the tires different folks are using.... and possibly on the direction of the turn.