Hey everyone trying to find some assistance with our fire truck, the truck in question is a 91 f-superduty 7.3idi 5-speed 4x4, the truck is a brush truck , we recently received it back from the body shop getting it painted and we started looking into aftermarket tires& wheels so we could fit wider and taller mud tires on it problem is the front(Dana 60) is 8x6.5 & the rear is a Dana 80 (10x7.25) so we've looked for wheels to fit the rear and they are hard to come-by it seems, while the front are much easier so my question is does anyone know of a way to convert the rear to match the front , or a company that makes adapters for the same result or maybe even a company that makes a polished (10-12" wide) wheel to fit the rear

 

Hello JWWWFF,

Have a look at "arrowcraft" for adaptors, and Rickson Truck Accessories or Rickson Truck Wheels for good wheels, you may have to ask them to adapt, or build some in your case.

Stockton wheels are no good, too many issues with them.

let us know if this worked for you, ok?
Good Luck!

 

The rear axle on an F-Superduty is a Dana 80. The hub is too large for an 8x6.50 wheel to fit over.
You might be able to find/have made some adapters to go to 19.5" wheels.

 

Thanks for the quick replies fellas I contacted arrowcraft, just waiting to hear back, they make adapters to go from 8 lug to 10 lug so I don't think they wouldn't be able to reverse the idea..phy I understand the dana80 has a large hub and in most cases 19.5 would be ideal but the only mud tire for a 19.5 is a 36x13.50 interco irok which is $625 a piece and while it would be nice to have its easier to convince the 36 people in the fire dept to buy a set of custom adapters, a cheap set of 8 lug wheels and a set of tires then on $2500 worth of tires a set of 19.5 wheels(not cheap) and adapters for the front

 

you might ask the people at rickson wheels if they can weld a heartplate from a wheel that fits the dana 80 into a rim that is the same as your frontwheels with such a backspacing that the wheels are tracking the same?

 

I'll look into them Bart, on a side note me and another guy in the Firedept were discussing this situation and we have a set of wheels that'll fit the front and we came up the idea we may be better to use 2 of the wheels for the front and then just have the painter sand the stock rear 10lugs down and paint them chrome and just get the same diameter tires to fit the front, mind you we would still have to space out the rear tires to not rub but it would still have the same effect as having wider single tires in all four corners, our goal is to #1 get more aggressive and wider tires to have better traction and distribute the weight better(we have a lot of farms in our jurisdiction and we have farm equipment fires through out the year and it is mostly sandy soil around here) #2 to get rid of the rest of the hideous old lime-yellow(the whole truck was the same color as the stock wheels) and #3 get this thing up to par and in service so we can use it and quit having to run hundreds of feet of hose out so our kenworth engines can stay on the closest road/path so they don't sink down and get stuck

 

could you get me a better pic from the rearwheels?

Hearing what your goal is, I might have a better solution.
don't make any decisions in a hurry yet!
please let me see the rear situation as it is now, then I come with a plan...
(Like Mc Giver...)

could you get me the weights from the truck and payload as well? (you might PM them to me, eventually?)

 

Your situation is exactly why we had this truck built a few years ago:



We have a second brush truck at Station 2 that no one likes because of it's length and dual rear wheels:



Finding rims to fit that Dana 8 10-lug is going to pricey. Just make sure the tires are rated to handle the load they will be supporting.

 

dang, typed a whole story, ppfffttt gone with the wind, have to restart

 

As far as I can see, you have a regular Dually set up.
Faforable for this set up is: they combine a huge payload with a lot of stability over the road.
As soon as you go Off road, as you wrote that your Fire dept has to do, there are some disadvantages to this set up. Some of them are: rocks that can nest themselves between the tires, and so take them tires out very quickly by puncturing the sidewalls.
If you have to air down, the tire walls touch each other, thereby creating a loss of air (after a short amount of time)
By this setup it is normal that the tires do not track (running in the same line), therefore if you drive trough loose sand the engine has to do enormous amounts of work to pull the vehicle forward, this results in more heat development, less economy (consumes more fuel), and the greater risk of getting stuck.

What you are looking for (in my opinion) is wheels (rim/tire combinations) that are SRW (single rear wheel), that have the same track (the space between the center of the thread on both tires) is the same on the front axle as well as on the rear axle. And take care that the tire you select is preferably a small high sidewalled tire instead of a big wide tire.
There is a reason why professionals such as the Army or race drivers such as the Paris-Dakar drive their trucks as they do…
The advantages for a small high walled tire over a big wide tire are: If you have to pass a patch of loose sand, and you lower the tire pressure to about 1/3th of your regular pressure you can drive trough that patch of loose sand without any problem. DO DRIVE WITH REDUCED SPEED! For not to heat up the tire too much, or get the tire to run off your rim!
If you do this with a High walled Small tire, the surface on the ground (giving you traction) will be much bigger than if you use a big wide tire. There is scientific evidence from this, though I don’t know where to find that for the moment.
If you than as well take care that those tires on your truck track the same, front and rear, you’ll see that the rear tires do run in the same tracks that were already made by the front tires, thereby making the engines job lighter (ie less heat, less fuel consumption, less risk of getting stuck.)
Comparing a big wide tire and a high side walled small tire in the loose sand, you’ll see that the surface which has to overcome the sand is bigger with the big wide tire, than on the small tire.
Resulting again in: less heat, less fuel consumption, less risk of getting stuck. For the small tire.
So, then rests; you have to find a tire that is sturdy enough to carry all the weight your firetruck puts on its axles, that is, the weight of the empty truck, and it’s payload.
If you take all that weight into account, you’ll see that these tires give you automatically sufficient stability.
A small word about high and low profile (sidewall ratio) tires, of you choose the sidewall ratio too low, the tire will be very stable on the blacktop, but will NOT provide you with enough damping (spring working) once off road, thereby increasing the risk of damaging your trucks springs/rims.
On the other hand, if you choose a TOO high sidewall, that will decrease the stability and cornering with all that load in the back.

Well, I hope this helps in making a well founded decision for your communities fire truck.
(you might better forget about the aggressive stance, and get something that gets you there time and time again, so you can do your work well!)

Good luck

 

If you had 20s forthe back I'd say go with a set of 750-20 NDTs on the back bit it looks like you currently have 16s so 9.00-16 NDTs all the way around. Good enough pattern for a duece should work for a brush truck I'd think.

 

Hey, sorry for the delay It is a dually set up on the rear with 16" wheels in all positions with around about 32" tires, not sure what the actual weight is but it was a steel body, 300 gallon water tank(about 2500 lbs), and about 200 lbs of misc objects hoses,rakes,shovels

 

As for the what you wrote Bart if we use the wheels we have for the front(16x12) and buy simulators for the rear we would have a similar foot print in all four corners and should track in the same path and as for the aspect ratio for the side wall we looked into a set of 33x13r16 interco ssm16 for the front and 33x10.5r16 for the rear they have a 3415lb load capacity both sizes , and for the stability on the road its completely flat ground in this area and the way this truck is geared full throttle in 5th gear it will only run 60mph so there shouldn't be any issues with that

 

We went with the Super Single tire option on the second brush truck for a reason. Duallies and any off-road ventures were a disaster on the the crewcab brush truck (8582).

 

If you don't mind me asking rla2005 what was some of the problems your dept incountered with the dualies offroad?