Originally Posted by
78_f150
first you cant buy many tires for a 16.5 any more. second 16.5 wheels have no saftey bead. so when running low air psi, the tire can fall off the bead, and a leak of any sort and the tire goes low, it can just fall off. they were not the safest wheel design.
I am using 8 lug 15s on my dana 60s and the front i had to grind the calipers down. My wheels dont have much backspace, so i cut a decent amount off the calipers. its close now but no rubbing. I happen to have stumbled on the wheels in my shop. At first i thought they were 16s but tried to put a tire on and they ended up being 15s.
I just looked up several tire manufacturers and there were plenty of 16.5 tires. I've been hearing 16.5 tires were going to stop being made for years and yet they're still here....
I think you may be thinking of the old 16.5 split rims when talking about the bead falling off. And some 16.5's have a safety bead.
And if the OP is going to run less than 15psi he needs to invest in a set of beadlocks anyway.