I am in the process of swapping a Dana 70 1-ton axle onto my E-150. I have a couple different options with tire size, but the one i was looking at was 235/85R16. I know from reading other posts that 31" tires will fit, but 235/85s are 32". Will that still fit?

If not, would it be an issue of not fitting at all, or just under load/full compression (bottoming out). I am willing to chop the wells to whatever is needed, but i don't want to buy a tire that i have to worry about shredding everytime i go over a speedbump...

 

Depending on brand, in real life that size tire is only about 30 inches tall when mounted on a wheel. On a van, you will be much better off with a 31 for a few reasons.

Wider foot print = stable
Softer ride instead of jarring from a narrow tire running at 80 psi.

 

Well the thing is that it's a dually axle, so i can't go very wide, and hopefully stability won't be an issue.

Only 30" eh? So what metric size would give me around 31-32" with out going over 9.25-9.5" wide?

I thought about getting a wider tire for the front two (stock five lug pattern) but didn't want it to look odd, so i was going to stick with 235/75R15 in the front to match the width of each in the rear.

 

I know someone who swaped the front around making it an 8 lug one ton van, non dually though.