Just a quick question.

My daily driver is a 88' ranger 2.0L 5spd that is worth maybe $500.

Anyways, I have P195/70R14 tires on it, and one of them has been giving me trouble (I've fix-a-flated it so many times it's rediculous). It recently became apparent that it had broke it's belt and developed a knot.

And then it went flat overnight. Luckily, my spare is good.

Anyways, I had a used, but decent, P185/70R14 tire laying around. I had big o tire put it on my rim for me, although I have yet to put it on my truck.

Will it be a problem to have a P195/70R14 on one side, and a P185/70R14 on the other (they are both on the rear).

I know it's not a huge difference, but I don't know much about tires, so I figured I should ask someone with a little more experience.

Thanks in advance.

 

Is the spare full size and in good shape? Why not run it and designate the smaller one as your spare?

 

no, the spare is a true donut spare, can't go over 50mph in it (I do anyway, lol)

 

since it's 2wd put the 185 on the front until you can get anothe 195. If the rear axle isn't limited slip you could be okay with it on the rear - not sure.

 

Rule of thumb don't mix tire sizes on drive wheels. In this case you can get by with it on the front but I wouldn't recommend it on the rear for any longer than it would take to get you home or to a tire repair shop after a flat.

 

That's what I was worried about, a size difference makeing the axle bind until the wheel manages to lose a little traction.

It's not limited slip, so I'm trying to think if the diff would allow for tire size difference.

I don't think it would, in order for the bigger tire to keep up, the smaller one would have to spin faster making it want to get ahead of the bigger one. The whole axle would want to go around in a circle. Just like rolling a cone around on the ground, it goes in a circle.

I didn't think of putting it on the front though (duh!!), that's what I'll do...

I always thought the driver side sagged some anyways, I'll just put the bigger tire on that side!!! lmao

 

heck if you were local to me, I'd give you the two 195/70/14s I took off my ranger They were in pretty good shape.

Matt

 

what state are you in?

 

An open diff won't care that the tires are different sizes. You can run that tire on the rear with no problems but my preference would be to move a tire from the front to the back and put the smaller one up front.

Matt

 

You Can't Run Different Sizes If You Have A Limited Slip Or Locker, Or A 4x4, Other Than That It Will Just Look Goofy And Maybe Lean A Little.

 

I hate to argue, and I know all of you guys have way more experience than me, but the more I think about it the more I think you can't run different sizes and have the differential compensate for it.

I'll try to explain this as simply as I can, but bear with me...

if you can imagine and axle with a differential, traveling straight (not turning). Both sides of the axle are spinning at the same speed.

When you turn in a direction, the inside wheel will spin a little slower (depending on how sharply you are turning), while the outside wheel will spin a little faster.

Now, imagine that one of the tires is a little taller than the other. And say that your going straight, not turning. The axle that has the bigger wheel attached to it will be turning slower than the axle with the smaller wheel.

The problem is, if one side of the axle slows down, the other side speeds up. The taller wheel makes it's axle turn slower, which will make the smaller wheel speed up, which will make the whole axle assembly try and run in a circle. Except that it's connected to the rest of the truck, which is trying to go straight.

So the axle is going to bind until one of the tires lose traction, or something breaks, or until you turn in the other direction, in which case it'll start to bind in that direction.

After typing all of that and thinking it through, I've convinced myself that is the case.

Tell me what you guys think?

 

I know you can run 2 different sized tires, I've done it many times back when I was young and broke.

 

Maybe it's really easy to lose enough traction to let the bind correct itself. I would think it would be similar to driving on pavement in 4 wheel drive locked. I've had to do it in situations in my f250, and it'll bind so much you'll hear it groan, not to mention you have to kick the gear shift to shift into 2wd.

 

The open differential will allow you to run tires of different sizes and still propel the vehicle forward in a straight line. However, to do that, the small differential gears will always be turning and they turn on a shaft without bearings. Tha can accelerate the wear of those gears and the shaft. As a result, if it were me, I wouldn't run tires of s different size on the rear axle for any length of time. If you have to run tires of different sizes, do it on the front.

 

Not unless it's a limited slip or a locker.

With a limited slip - the planetary gears will only allow so much extra rotation on one side or the other, and then BOTH axles (left and right) will turn in a fixed rotation relationship from one side to the other. THEY BOTH TURN AT THE SAME SPEED after a point. In that situation, two different tire sizes would mean one of the tires would be SKINNED because it would be forced to break traction.

Normal (non-LS) planetary gears distribute the rotation of the driveshaft between both axles, and if one turns more than the other it makes absolutely no difference to it. It is typical of such a differential (planetary assembly) in slippery conditions to spin one rear tire while the other (which had better traction) remains planted - this is why they are less preferred. In racing use, they do the same on "LAUNCH", which is what we call "PEG-LEGGING". Single wheel burn-outs....

Now if you follow all of that, NON-LS axles are preferred for ordinary use, since on winding roads you could wear out a lot of tires with LS even if they are the same size. They WILL drag one tire or the other while turning sharply.

For serious traction - you want a locker because you want both tires digging.

What we don't know yet, is if the rear axle we're talking about here is a LOCKER OR NOT. For that info - we need the numbers off of the tag on the axle itself.

~Wolf


PS: DO NOT USE "FIX-a-FLAT"!!! Carry a plugging kit, and know how to use it!
I'd about guarantee that you've wrecked your rim with that stuff...