RE: Axles & tires

From: JT McBride (James.McBride@GDEsystems.COM)
Date: Fri Oct 11 1996 - 21:01:50 EDT


Jason writes:
>I'm the guy who just bought a 95 Sport 4x4 3.9L 5 speed who
...
>Back to my tire question... sounds like 31x10.5 will fit, but
>only with new wheels. Does anybody have any specific

Not true. I have 31x10.5-15s on my stock '93 alloy rims (only 6" wide) and
only get two 1" square rub spots in front of the axle where the tires rub
at full lock. For 90% of the time they're fine, and you're never going fast
enough at full lock to heat up a tire. I recommend this size for off-road.
Gives you a nice little bit of ground clearance, and the wider tire bulges
a bit to protect the wheel. Make sure you get tires with a sturdy sidewall
though - even a bit of tread (Mickey Thompson Fun Country's are a bit
extreme in this regard, and pricey, but that idea). I've had no problem
with flotation in sand with the tires at full inflation (whereas I did with
the stock 235/75s) and haven't had to air them down too much. I drop the
pressure to about 25 so they climb rocks better, run 28-40 psi on the street.
Note that you can fine-tune your footprint with such oversize tires.

>keep the price under about $75 per wheel if possible. Also, I

Try the stock with the 31/10.5s first. You'll have a hard time finding wheels
to fit the Dakota since, as mentioned, the bolt pattern is a unique six on
4.5, or six lugs on a 4.5" bolt circle. If you want cool wheels, you're
talking about custom wheels (read ~$300 and up EACH). Someday, I'm thinking
it would be neat to make some Centerline wheels that would take a 17" low-
profile (55 series?) tire for around town. Totally impractical off-road, but
even I put most of the miles on the truck on the freeway.

Oh, bigger tires will mess up your speedo/odo setup. I understand Dodge sells
a whole range of the pickup gears, though I haven't sorted that out yet.

Jim

When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution
with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom
to Americans ...And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom.
When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what
we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects,
about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try
to make people safer in their communities. -- President Bill Clinton, 3-22-94,
                                               MTV's "Enough is Enough"

 



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