? WHEELS ?

[Greg In Austin]

OK, here is the update....

We are about decided on a wheel and tire combo.
...and the van has not yet been delivered to Fresno

We are going with :

American Eagle 186s 18x9 (possibly powder coated)
load cap 3450lbs
and
Cooper Discoverer STT LT 325/65/R18
35 inch w/ load cap of 3860lbs

So tell us why this is a good idea?

or

Tell us why this is a bad idea AND what would be better?

Thanks,

Greg in Austin
2008 Ford EB SMB4x4 PSD ... ON ORDER!

[myriadmyriad]

18x9 .... Not so good for off-road especially with 35inch tires. Too much

wheel not enough tire... They would handle well on road.. It's hard to have it

all ! 8 inch wheels are easier on the wheel bearings, plus the bulge in the

side wall protects the rim better. I have a set of Toyo M/Ts 18 sitting in my

garage, can't figure out what to use them on.


JM

[Greg In Austin]

JM,

You missed the important part of the question....

"AND what would be better?"

I am hearing that these tires and wheels are very good offroad.
The combo also has a much greater load capacity, which should help combat what seems to be the biggest tire problem that SMBs have.
Since we are getting an EB van, we feel the 35 inch tire also just looks better due to the scale of the big white van.

Thank you for playing, Please try again.

[jage]

But 9" wide rims has less to do with 35s than the 325/ which is 12.75" in width. I used to have problems on 8" rims with 10.5" tires because they folded back from the bead even at anything lower than 20 lbs.

Going to 7" wide would have solved my problem- problem being that the bead would get jammed with little sticks and junk and cause slow leaks @12psi. This was pretty serious wheeling and I never lost a bead because of it, just wound up with annoying slow leaks and having to clean out my beads.

Of course for overkill's sake, I bought 8" beadlock rims instead of going to 7". Going with a wider tire would have solved the problem too.

Gist is, I think 8" wide rim and 12.75" wide tire is fine for most anything that isn't going to tear the van to pieces anyway.

[jage]

Oh and I think JM was suggesting going to x8" rims instead of x9..

[myriadmyriad]

Greg See my post dated 10-30

JM

[Greg In Austin]

Originally Posted by myriadmyriad

17x8 is perfect..... with 295/70/17 tires.. Big tires are tough on the suspension components. Aluminum wheels save a ton of weight,but they should be rated for 3000lbs load... You have to shop around for that rating. I like American racing or MT classics(Made by Alcoa)...

JM

"AND what would be better?"

I have run oversized tires on my current 4wd for close to 300k miles and have not had any suspension component issues.

Both the tires and wheels we have selected are rated far above the 3000lb load carrying you described, in fact even the standard equipment is rated above 3000.

We are going with :

American Eagle 186s 18x9 (possibly powder coated)
load cap 3450lbs
and
Cooper Discoverer STT LT 325/65/R18
35 inch w/ load cap of 3860lbs

We have heard about all the tire problems folks have had, and we want to avoid that. We do not want to be running at Max Load or Max pressure all the time.

I am more concerned about travtion in soft material than I am about rock-crawling. I don't think we will be doing a lot of rock crawling on purpose, but soft stuff is another story...

so by increasing the tire size to 35in and moving to 18 wheels we are getting a combined load carrying of 15440 lbs out of the tires.

So tell us why this selection is a good idea?

or

Tell us WHY this is a bad idea AND what would be better?

Thanks,

[jage]

For the soft stuff you want to float as much as possible- my experience being with soft fine sand like in Silverlake MI.

What I understand helps in sand:
Tire width: wider is better
Airing Down 1: wider compared to your rims prob means you can air down more
Weight: Not much you can do about this
Tread: ATs are way better than MTs as the latter digs you in.
Airing Down 2: I believe you'll get more footprint with more sidewall, eg. 17" rims but the trade off in load range from what I've seen doesn't seem to be somewhere you want to go.

Load range and capacity are in all your posts, so I'm assuming that's your #1 thing. The only way to get better performance in sand without detracting from your #1 is to go a little bit wider, which will help you air down further and have a bigger footprint. Is it worth going wider from the size you're at? I doubt it.

I think you've got a pretty solid tire and rim selection going and there isn't much anyone can say to refute it. Your air pressure is going to play a bigger role than your tire selection- I've seen guys running in the 20s in jeeps digging themselves in and having the worst day. Getting them to air down to 12psi and suddenly their rig is floating around having a grand time. Finding the right pressure for your rig and tire/wheel combo is going to be more important, but other than getting a set of sand paddles or going ridiculously wide I don't think you're going to get majorly better performance.

Oh and on my F250 I had BFG ATs and got them replaced with BFG AT/KOs the same size.. I don't know for sure with numbers, but I think I went from E to D or something because all of the sudden the side wall bulged way more at the same pressure, and although they've been fine I don't like the way they feel (sloppy). I should probably look into it, but I'm not a numbers guy and won't bother until I need new tires.

I hope you get these, I think they'll be right and I think you'll be able to come back to the forum and tell us how great a combination these are for an EB instead of worrying about all this conjecture and opinion.

[BroncoHauler]

If you plan on airing down, have a GOOD compressor handy. Big tires = long air up times.


Herb