Josh made the best recent score getting these NOS Courser 19.5s off Reno CL. The second pic is the set of 19.5" recaps I sent to the GMC Napco guy in MS. I also rescued a used set of 17" Coursers a couple years ago at a yard in KY, iirc. They have cracks but I saved them just in case. Stu

 

This reminded me of a story my grandpa told me about a year or so ago. When he was a kid during WWII, the family had just gotten a brand new set of tires, like you mentioned, pretty tough to get. Well, he was doing some yard work with a rake out some other tool, and left it in the driveway. His dad yelled at him to get the rake out of the driveway before someone ran it over. Well, he ended up forgetting or something when his mom backed out of the driveway, and, as you probably guessed, ran out over and blew up the brand new tire. You could say that his parents were a little upset with him after that.

 

My dad mentioned something about gramps or somebody had a car up on jacks, good tires, to avoid flat spots, mainly because of the fuel issue. And how they then later completely failed right away. Tough to say, though my impression was what really happened somebody probably had performed a little midnite substitution. Tires in the 20s and 30s were not very good (neither were the roads) and flats were a regular occurrence, by the 40s they weren't as bad? Dunno.

 

Here's an interesting matched set of 7.00 x 17s. They have found a temporary home on one of my trailers. Note the lack of cracks after many years of service. I never liked or ran the 7.00s. I figure if you're gonna have a hard to find 17" tire it might as well be 34" tall. And no, I didn't spackle in the cracks (this time) with sikaflex.....

 

Boy, not familiar with that tread pattern. Is there a Goodyear model anywhere? Stu

 

It says "studded suregrip"

 

They all look like tires to me. Had no idea there were so many different types, and many are obsolete today. What seems strange, if you guys have trouble, what are the Model T guys driving around on?

 

The Model T guys have reproduction tires to use. The vintage off road crowd are the folks left out in the cold when it comes to new tires. Take a look at Coker Tires website and you can see they only offer a few vintage off road tire treads. Most of the offerings looks nothing like the tires shown on this thread: https://www.cokertire.com/tires/shop...&%20Truck.html

 

Ok, interesting. Is it a lack of demand, tooling costs too high?

 

Thanks Ross, missed it.

There are tube type traction tires being reproduced in 16" and smaller sizes, and in the 20" big truck widths. There are tubeless traction tires being reproduced in the 16.5" and 17.5" sizes. There was (can still be found but I've heard no longer produced) the 7.50 x 17" Tornel traction but it looks much different than traditional old designs. There are no bias ply tubeless 8-19.5s being reproduced - period - in either road or traction tread.

I can maybe understand the lack of 17s because many of the original 17" single wheel designs had widow maker RH-5° outer rims. Us F-2/3 M-H guys use dually style 17" wheels that are not WMs, but we are way too few in numbers to matter. It's the guys needing the 8-19.5s used by F-250s, Dodge Power Giants, factory and Napco Chevies/GMCs, IHCs, and Studebakers that are S.O.L.

There are plenty of the obsurdly tall/fat rock crawler off road designs but none of them will fit the narrow original rims, and none that look like the old originals.

I think the market is out there based on emails I get from guys looking for old original tires. I'll be writing Coker a letter about it, and might do a letter to Vintage Truck. Stu