bias ply tire memories.

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pishta

pishta

I know I'm right....
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recent post reminded me of my 65's tires when I bought it...those "Power Cushion" bias ply tires were on my 65 Barracuda when I bought it (1995) after sitting since 1976 in a warehouse. I drove home on them and even about a month after that. Seems I didn't give a rip on how old the really were at the time. Strange feeling after driving radials all my life. Sort of floats down the road, very soft.
 
The only experience I have with them is the junky CJ5 I used to have. It had 4 different types of tires on it, one of them being a bias ply from ‘86.
I had it on the front for about a half a day but it made the steering almost uncontrollable.
91BF9178-D13E-4206-AD7E-BE612A14688F.jpeg
 
I had Goodyear Polyglas GTs on my 73 340 Charger. They went up in smoke on a daily basis.
 
I have never driven on a set but my spare still has the original poly glass tire on the rim. Looks cool but I would never use it.
 
Reminds of the first set of rear tires and aluminum mags I put on my '65 Valiant back in 1973--Goodyear Polyglas A60-13. Cute little tires. Not Goodyear but the same size:

a60-13.jpeg
 
The HP 273 in my 65 could really burn that near bald 13 incher off. Just one of course.
 
Only experience I have were 35” Super Swampers on an 84 Dodge truck. Ran down the road good once you got rolling and the they rounded themselves back into shape!!
 
An annoying story from the old days. NAS Miramar in the early 70's had 3 gates, and I mostly used either the main gate out onto highway 15, or the west or "back" gate out onto Miramar road. At the time and for some time after I'd bought the car it had G60X15 tires, and I was either waiting for a tire guy to get 2 more or something going on. ANYway I borrowed 2 mounted G or F 70x14 for the rear for a few days

So I'm going out the back gate. And there's a short little Marine who'd talked to me in the auto hobby shop, and he stops me, and he's giving me ****. Funny, but yet. "I bet you can't" all that stuff. This was still the 440-6 in the car headers, cam. Anyway I moved it up in RPM, just bumped it up got into the clutch and firewalled the throttle, and soon found out "we" needed 2nd gear. Those little bitty f70 poly tires made the thickest, blackest, shiniest tracks I've ever seen. Two sets of long wavy tracks.

This marine is back out there a few days later and he stops me again. "DAMN what is IN that thing? Some officer came up behind and demanded I tell him "who was that?" I told him "Hell I don't have any idea I couldn't see anything for the tire smoke!!"

Bear in mind that traffic violations on a Navy base were no joke. And getting the use of your car kicked off Miramar would have been a lot more than a PITA. It would have been a gigantic inconvenience!!1
 
Without suregrip, my parents new 1971 383 auto with open 3.23 rear gears (factory equipped G60-15 Polyglas GT) was spinning a tire off the line at Fremont Raceway. A guy walked over to me and suggested I over-inflate the tires for better traction (quite opposite to my ideas at the time). It worked, and it took off without the previous wheel spinning!
 
Last set I had were on my old willys, man they rode rough.

1002082.jpg
 
No one remember how they followed every line in the pavement?
 
YY1 said:
No one remember how they followed every line in the pavement?
Click to expand...
yes...yes I do. I had to run a 10" bias ply spare from Baker to Newport Beach (~200 miles) when my Honda AN600 got a flat. About 10 miles into the trip back on the 1971 era spare (This was 1985!) I took it off the front and put it on the back as it was near impossible to keep in 1 lane. After that the back was squirely the entire way home. Some old Centerlines still say 'Bias ply only' on the center register. Later Centerlines were made with a heavier bead for radials.
 
When I was a teenager in the 1990s with no money, I found a pair of my pops' 15" American racing Torq Thrust wheels that came on his second '67 GTX that he bought in the early 80s. These wheels had some great looking bias ply Goodyears on them. He had long since swapped them out for some other wheel/tire....

He said that he didn't mind if I bolted them onto the Dart and drove around but that I should be careful since they were ancient (already a minimum of 15 years old...and probably older).

Well, they looked cool as hell to my 18 year old eye...but in addition to being as old as the hills, they were a mismatch to the radials on the front...that was a scary experience. I had them on there for a couple months and I damn near spun the car around twice in the rain before I ditched them in favor of some used $25 dollar radials that were way, way, way better than the old Goodyear bias ply tires. :D

Thanks for the lesson, Dad!!


Craig Burriss said:
The only experience I have with them is the junky CJ5 I used to have. It had 4 different types of tires on it, one of them being a bias ply from ‘86.
I had it on the front for about a half a day but it made the steering almost uncontrollable.
View attachment 1715540135
Click to expand...

So it drove...like a CJ5. :D
 
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