swamp-thing
SILVER Star
So a month ago I was dropping off donations at our local landfill / recyle center and came by these two beauties on a pallet for the price of $5 each.
Not dryrotted, clean & vintage in every way! Cooper Discoverer Radial SST and Kelly Springfield Safari A-T. They are 7.50R16LT.
Being the scavenger I am, I scooped them up without haste or hesitation. I run 16” tacoma steelies on my fj40 with some wheel spacers, mostly because at one point in time ( many miles ago) the setup was in good shape and the 15’s on my cruiser at the time were tired so I swapped the 16’s on.
Anyway back to the old school rubber…My thought was, take one of these cool old beauties and mount it for a spare mostly for looks and why not. Since my cruiser is just a townie I wasn’t super concerned about the size being exact match or the tire being 40 plus years old.
Today was the day, I gussied up my spare rim with fresh paint and slowly, painstakingly pryed the Kelly over the rim beads…. Needless to say the 16x7 wheel accepting a super narrow tire did not really go so well. The tire was too narrow to meet any of the ramps on the wheel to seat the bead. i youtubed the ether methods, the cheetah method, and the ratchet strap method to mount skinnies on fat wheels.
After probably 2 hours of fussin and cussin I finally, FINALLY got the Kelly to air up. Ratchet strap and soapy water for the win.
Anyway, I’m not sure the effort was actually worth it, but it’s on now and hanging on my spare tire carrier:
i call it a win.
Not dryrotted, clean & vintage in every way! Cooper Discoverer Radial SST and Kelly Springfield Safari A-T. They are 7.50R16LT.
Being the scavenger I am, I scooped them up without haste or hesitation. I run 16” tacoma steelies on my fj40 with some wheel spacers, mostly because at one point in time ( many miles ago) the setup was in good shape and the 15’s on my cruiser at the time were tired so I swapped the 16’s on.
Anyway back to the old school rubber…My thought was, take one of these cool old beauties and mount it for a spare mostly for looks and why not. Since my cruiser is just a townie I wasn’t super concerned about the size being exact match or the tire being 40 plus years old.
Today was the day, I gussied up my spare rim with fresh paint and slowly, painstakingly pryed the Kelly over the rim beads…. Needless to say the 16x7 wheel accepting a super narrow tire did not really go so well. The tire was too narrow to meet any of the ramps on the wheel to seat the bead. i youtubed the ether methods, the cheetah method, and the ratchet strap method to mount skinnies on fat wheels.
After probably 2 hours of fussin and cussin I finally, FINALLY got the Kelly to air up. Ratchet strap and soapy water for the win.
Anyway, I’m not sure the effort was actually worth it, but it’s on now and hanging on my spare tire carrier:
i call it a win.