[Staowners] Rookie says: Whitewall Tires + "Bulletin Board"

Fri Feb 16 18:59:30 CST 2007

Ray,

Exciting days ahead for you with that Alpine.

The original  equipment was  550 x 16   Dunlop Fort Covers - Cross Ply.

Because of the weight and  speed of the car they were a 6 ply tyre (tire).

The Sunbeam Manual  had  three recommended  pressures. The wording

On the third one was “ For high speeds and speeds approaching Maximum”

30 lbs per square inch pressure !!!!!!!    -    Hang on !!. 

The cars I had drove well enough on cross ply tyres,  but in the seventies
in 

The UK  ,  16 inch tyres was very hard to come by. 

Some people chose to overcome the problem, by  fitting  15 inch wheels
straight

off  a Humber Hawk, or  Super Snipe, some of which provided a wheel slightly
wider

than the standard  4 ½  J   Sunbeam wheel. 15 inch tyres were much

easier to obtain at the time. There were two drawbacks:  1. you lost  a
couple 

of inches in rolling circumference, and 2. the replacement wheels did not
have 

the cooling slots that the Sunbeam had. The wheel stud spacing is identical

though,  and the MK IIA  &  MK III hub caps  will fit.

One day, when in London, ( about 1975) I found to my utter amazement, that
every London 

Taxi was fitted with  16 inch wheels & tyres. On enquiring though it seemed

that Dunlop produced them for the Taxis only , and they were not readily
available

To the general public.  I eventually acquired a set of  very  175 x 16”
steel belted

taxi  radials, but Dunlop totally refused to give the tyres a speed rating.
They

were manufactured for Taxis – full stop. 

I ran an Alpine with cross plys on the front, and radials on the rear at one
stage.

You were allowed to do that at the time. The idea was to keep the steering

light,  and to have more rubber on the road at the back end. 

You could play around with tyre pressures, but unless you pumped them up

To about 40 psi  when the car  then  bounced along the road like a ping
–pong

Ball, the tail tended to slew out. 

Well you probably have a much better choice these days as tyre technology

Will provide you with   performance  tyres   that do not  destroy  the looks

And originality of a fine car.  

Someone in Australia actually widened a set of 16”  x 4 ½ J Sunbeam wheels,
taking

them out to about  5”  , I think,  and thus  achieving an original radius
wheel 

that  would take  a steel belted radial . 

Good luck 

Ian L. Moist. 

.

  _____  

From: staowners-bounces at sunbeamtalbot.info
[mailto:staowners-bounces at sunbeamtalbot.info] On Behalf Of
raymead at comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, 17 February 2007 12:38 AM
To: staowners at sunbeamtalbot.info
Subject: [Staowners] Rookie says: Whitewall Tires + "Bulletin Board"

Hello everyone,

I guess I'm probably the newest Sunbeam Alpine owner -

just bought a 1954 out of New Jersey (from ebay).  (I'm

so new to Alpines that the car hasn't even been delivered yet)!

1.  I went out to inspect it (I am near Scranton, PA) and noticed

that it needs new tires.......  (in fact, it seems to have oversized

tires on it)..............   In any case, I want to put on a nice

set of 2+" whitewall radials - anyone have any suggestions????

2.  When I joined staowners I received an email that directed

me to the Bulletin Board - this is what the email said:

                Also, please visit our new Bulletin Board at

                http://sunbeamtalbot.info/phpbb/index.php for 

                discussions on topics related to our cars 

    I've tried that site and it doesn't come up.................it

keeps telling me that webpage cannot be found...........?????

tks much,  Ray Mead

'54 Sunbeam Alpine

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