How long, and how many miles, are your current tires lasting?

 

Cyncwby, those are the exact wheels I want. I had spoken with Summit Racing about those wheels a year ago and finally convinced them to get them in that size, they carry other sizes but I wanted to buy from them. I was about to pull the trigger but I had to have hernia surgery so that had priority. At the time Eagle wasn't selling directly and Summit had the best prices. Now there are a couple of dealers on ebay. I need to save up my pennies.

 

If you look in the notes, the 19.5 Classic doesn't have the fake "bro bolts" on it. All other sizes do. I prefer the look with the stock centercaps over the giant tall lugs and AF centercaps. Order some up so I can drool over your truck. I'm really into the idea of the classics with some 245's on them. 33" tall should be about perfect. Still have lots of tread on my stockers, but they will dryrot before I run the tread off. I love my truck, but had Ford produced a real F450 with 19.5's from 11-14, I would have done it. Surely would have cost less than doing it after the fact!

 

20-25k/mi. The fronts just get eaten up.

In all honesty I just like the 19.5 look but have heard the tires can hold up longer.

 

dualwheels66 and anyone else interested...... I bought the Eagle 058 wheels from a vender on ebay that goes by "cinimus". I paid $225 each and picked them up when we went down to So. Cal. for Easter. These things are big and heavy and he charges $40 each for shipping, still $265 is a hell of a lot cheaper than the American Force wheels. I also didn't want all the ginger bread looking chit around the outside of the wheel....just nice, simple, shiny and BIG.......Let me know if you need his phone number....Dave

 

Just looked up the Eagle 058 to see what all the fuse is about them and found this picture. Check out his front wheels they are not the regular wheels you see on the front of a dually.

 

Here is another one

 

do you have to have the 2 steel inner wheels? I would prefer all 6 aluminum personally... wonder if these would stick past the fenders?

 

Both pictures are typical of sled pull trucks. The top one started life as a dually and they just unbolted the front spacers to run SRW wheels. The bottom one is just an SRW truck with duals slapped on the back. Not going to carry any weight and most likely only run like that at the track so touching tires is irrelevant.


No issue with running SRW wheels up front except for the fact that you'd need 2 spares...............

 

I don't think the studs are long enough for aluminum inners.


As far as sticking out, they do not appear to. Duallywheels4u.com has a great gallery with lots of pics.

 

I have a 450 with 19.5's Wanted to go all alum but studs were to short. I'll change them when I get time
Also if you need the steel inners I have a couple 8 lug rims I bought for the 19.5's on them I'd sell them cheap

 

Only 20K miles? That's crazy. I'd spend the money on a good alignment shop before I'd spend it on changing to 19.5 wheels. Decent 19.5 tires cost over $400 each, and they won't last any longer if there is something wrong with your steering linkage, suspension geometry or hub bearings that is eating your tires so fast.

There is more steel in a 19.5" tire, which makes the casings stronger, and even regroovable/retreadable in some cases, but the tread itself is still vulnerable to cupping from poor shock absorber response, as well as all the other evils that poor alignment can inflict on rubber.

Even if the rubber compounding is "harder" on the 19.5 tire, making it curb chip proof and presumably less apt to wear down... as well as less comfortable... another 10K or 20K miles of life will buy you how much time before plunking down another $800 for two steer tires?

I never ran out of tread life on my OEM 19.5 tires before I had to change them out due to two of them blowing out from aging out, and a third exploded early in life from a rapid loss of air due to a launched valve stem. All those tires had plenty of tread left, but our household gets 90K to 100K tread life out of any tire on any vehicle, probably due to how we drive.

More expensive tires under the front end might not fix the short tread life... and might not even mask it all that well. 19.5" tires are significantly heavier, potentially doubling the rotating and unsprung mass, especially if upsizing to 245s or 265s. Assume that this extra mass adds angular radial loads on the wheel bearings due to the longer lever arm between the contact patch and the wheel stud. On the F350 and the 11-14 F450 pickup, the bolt circle diameter is smaller, making the lever longer than an OEM installation of 19.5" tires.

Take a look at the bolt circle diameter of the typical UPS and FedEx walk in parcal vans that run 245/19.5 tires. The bolt circle diameter (BCD) is huge, especially compared to that of an F-350. I've never measured a UPS truck, but I'm going to guess they have a BCD of 285.75mm, based on industry standards. The GM 4500/5500 TopKick/Kodiak series had a 275mm BCD. The F-450/550 chassis cabs that run smaller 225mm tires have a 225mm BCD. The more recent F350/450 dually pickups (without 19.5s) have only a 200mm BCD, and the earlier F350 dually pickups only had a 170mm BCD.

Those decorative "Bro Bolts" mentioned earlier in this thread are disguising the fact that the small BCD of an F-350 doesn't look right with a 19.5" medium duty truck tire and wheel. But regardless of looks, I'd assume more rapid unit bearing failure when mounting heavier tires and wheels to a smaller BCD.

 

The fake beadlock "bro bolts" are not present on the 19.5 AF rims. Only on 20" and up that require adapters to the big 10 lug pattern. The 19.5's look somewhat silly with the small AF centercaps, but with the Ford stockers they look great.


Every outlet has their reason for running a certain bolt pattern. There were plenty of GM bread trucks running around with 8 on 6.5 bolt pattern 19.5 wheels. The dodge and GM guys scoop them up because they are a direct bolt on. Be it 19.5's or 24's, SRW or DRW, bigger tires and wheels are going to ask more from the front end components. Nobodys arguing that, but 19.5's will be easier on the front end than adapters and a big heavy set of 11R22.5's.

I'm still super interested in doing it. Convincing the wife will be a whole 'nother story.

 

just ordered:
19.5 American Force Classic 6 aluminum kit:
225/70R19.5 14PLY Continental HDR Drive 32"

supposedly the manufacturer mills the face to allow for the 4 aluminum rears.

 

Sweet! Who did you order through? Did you get clearcoat or just polished?