Tires, how cracked is too cracked?

[Gunfreak25]

I am willing to bet most of our trucks have some weatherchecking on the tires. We all know you run the best tires on the front axle, that is just common sense on a large manual steering truck.

This question pertains more to the duals. As I see it, duals are great because it allows you to run your worst tires on the rear, you carry 4 spares with you at all times, lastly the rear tires see very little stress on an unloaded vehicle due to all the ground contact area. I think someone said the rears literally "float" at max speed on pavement.

But where you do draw the limit on tire condition even for rear use? I've seen some tires where the sidewalls were peeling off, some are just slightly weather checked all around on both sides. Has anyone suffered a blow out on a rear tire due to dry rot?

 

[doghead]

Here's food for thought.

I had an inner duel blow once, and it took out the hydraulic brake line(on a pre 68 2.5 ton civy truck with a single rear axle). Yup, single curcuit brake system. Since the truck was fully loaded, the other (outer) dual blew from the extra load. I ended up turning into the lean to avoid rolling over and ended up off the interstate in to a field.

I like non weathered Fidelity, or T-Hawks only on my MVs.

 

[Srjeeper]

The best person to answer that question for you would be your insurance agent. I had an agent tell me one time that if they saw somthing that even appeared unsafe they would not have to pay on a major claim weather that was the cause or not.

Your insurance covers you providing you maintain the vehicle in as safe a manner as possible.

Then if you don't like his answer ask an attorney. He'll scare ya to death..

 

[DUG]

Crack is whack. In your tires or in a pipe - crack is bad.

 

[seabeeut]

Cost of a good tire is less than the accident or worse

 

[mattg2448]

all of my tires are good but one, and its not that bad, just kinda scratched looking

 

[73m819]

If the DOT man should see a age cracked tire, he WILL park the truck on the spot till the tire is replaced, all the time while waiting WILL be inspecting the truck and writing tickets

 

[lavarok]

I was just searching for threads on this topic last night....reminds me of this one:

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/deuce/51362-would-you-drive.html

 

[ODdave]

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<-------- Let me check for you.
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[spicergear]

Ha! Nice... I just swapped a member some stuff for a tire and the tire has some checking in one spot, looks to be where it was parked for a while. Parked inflated, not flat. I debating...

 

[rickf]

Here is food for thought. I bought a CUCV with four great looking tires, no checking, cracks, nothing. Within three weeks tree of them had blown out! I didn't wait for number four. Keep in mind I was only driving locally and not on highways and not loaded. The tires were just old and even though they looked good they were not.

Rick

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

When i picked up my 1968 Firebird a few years ago it had been parked since 1982. It has JC Penny bias ply tires on the rear, no idea how old they were. i put air in them and drove them around for a couple thousand miles at highway speeds and doing some severe burn outs while i finished up the engine swap and mini-tub. They are still good tires laying around holding air to this day. Ive had 1 week old brand new trailer tires blow out, and several month old truck tires blow out. i think its hit or miss with tires. i really do like the fact that these tires are inner tube and having 8 drive wheels really is like carrying 4 spares. Steer tires can be a little scary when they go, but they usually arent too catastrophic.

FWIW most of my deuce tires show cracking/dry rot on the outside, so do my tripple axle backhoe tires, and the truck tires i just replaced on my pick up did as well and they were only 2 years old.

 

[rickf]

Some of the tires we used on hay wagons were amazing! They were cracked, split, tread falling off and overloaded by a factor of 4 but they still held air. Surface cracks on rubber is just a product of ozone and not detrimental to the tire but when the cracks get deeper and will open and close as the tire moves then they are trouble. Most of the strength in a tire is from the cords BUT, the cords are contained by the rubber casing.

Rick

 

[panshark]

OP-design of the tire has a lot to do with how they hold up with regards to weather-checking. Bias belted tires seem to hold up to a bit more age-abuse than radials. You may not get anywhere near the mileage out of a bias-belted tire, but like rick said, they can have significant age-related defects and do a great job. Having an innertube in them is a major contributor to safety, IMO.

I think you've got to exercise a bit of caution if you're going with the "4 spares" mentality. The truck was designed to operate on 10 9x20 bias-belted non-directional tires, not 6. If you upgrade to tires rated for super-single configuration and continue to run duals, then you may be a little closer to reality when assuming that you've got "4 spares."

These trucks were engineered with redundancy in mind, so that if half the truck gets shot up, it can still move. Just like there's a list of approved emergency fuels, it is possible to run a 10-wheel truck with less than 10 wheels--but do you really want to?

 

[jj]

I had a 16.5" Goodyear Wrangler unseat itself from the wheel, at speed (50ish), on an inner dual. The truck was loaded, heavy, but not terribly close to the limit. Just unseated itself. Those tires were probably 15 to 17 years old at that point, with good tread and only the slightest signs of dry rot cracking. Scared me, but i finished the trip home, albeit much slower. The tire reseated and to this day still holds air on that same wheel. Of course, the tire and wheel are in a stack with the other three, sitting somewhere in the mess. If you are involved in some sort of altercation with the vehicle, rest assured the DOT, your insurance company, the other insurance companies, and EVERYONE'S lawyers are going to have a lot of opinions about your dry- rotted tires. You probably won't like anything they have to say. I know i never do

 

[DeucesWild11]

Shawn, I also have a 68 Firebird! I have Cooper Cobra tires on it from like the 80's or something, still work fine!

 

[lavarok]

Here is food for thought. I bought a CUCV with four great looking tires, no checking, cracks, nothing. Within three weeks tree of them had blown out! I didn't wait for number four. Keep in mind I was only driving locally and not on highways and not loaded. The tires were just old and even though they looked good they were not.

Rick

I had a similar situation with my M1010. Lost a front driver side tire during heavy traffic south of Atlanta. Aboonski was driving and was lucky to make it out with the truck in one piece and his life. The tires all looked great, but were just old. Needless to say, I replaced all 4 before finishing the trip home.

Based on my experience, I would never run a TUBELESS with any cracking or older than 10 years.

However, I've read a lot of conflicting advice regarding how much is too much on a TUBED tire.

 

[Gunfreak25]

I think you've got to exercise a bit of caution if you're going with the "4 spares" mentality. The truck was designed to operate on 10 9x20 bias-belted non-directional tires, not 6. If you upgrade to tires rated for super-single configuration and continue to run duals, then you may be a little closer to reality when assuming that you've got "4 spares."

Just like there's a list of approved emergency fuels, it is possible to run a 10-wheel truck with less than 10 wheels--but do you really want to?

Actually, the trucks were designed to be run on both singles and duals. The GMC M135's came from the factory with single 11.00 NDT's which have on average a 2000lb increase in weight capacity over 9.00's. Singled 900's on a Deuce will still yield a 16,000lb combined tire weight rating. So you could get away with a little load in the bed before reaching the tires limits. But yes, I agree. Single tires offer no redundancy in the event of a flat, especially when loaded. Caution is always a good thing to exercise and to be honest I am a guy who stopped taking chances years ago due to a non vehicle related accident.

 

[lavarok]

Looky what I found, this might be useful.

MYT41792 This is the Michelin Retread Technologies Ozone Scale chart.

 

[Varyag]

Is this one of those questions where if you have to ask they are prob. done?