Black & White

[C9]

Or . . . what I did this weekend.

You may have noticed the narrow WWs on the front of the 32 in previous posts.
Ended up with them cuz I was looking for a narrower tire for the 32's front end and all I could find was a WW.

I wasn't wild about running the WW on the inside of a highboy styled car so I decided to give it a shot on the outside.
Decided it was ok looking and ordered a pair of similar WWs for the back.

The new back tires are smaller (235/75R-15 & 29" diameter) than are the old tires (285/70R-15 & 30" diameter).
Along with that I dragged an old pair of slot mags out of the dusty and dark recesses of the garage, checked em over and started polishing them.
That was five months ago.

Got one fairly well cleaned up, the weather turned really cold and I got tired of the buffer throwing cold air in my face.
Figured I'd wait till warmer weather, but like many times for all of us, the job was shunted aside for a while.

Few days back got the other one cleaned up to match.
Neither of the rear wheels polished up like the professionally done ones in the front, but for now they'll do.
This WW thing is kind of an experiment anyway.

Along with the tire swap the wheel sizes were swapped as well.
The old wheels are 10" x 15" with 2 7/8" backspace.
The new ones are 7" x 15" with 3 3/4" backspace.
I woulda rather had 8" wide wheels, but didn't have any, couldn't find any at my pals shop or either of the junkyards.
So the 7" wheels are it for now.

The change in backspace almost screwed things up.
I got fooled because I had measured all my wheels when I stored them, marked the size etc. and thought they had 3" backspace.

I noticed my little screw-up after I had the tires mounted & balanced and installed the first one.
Got a little close to the 4-bars, but there is sufficient clearance there and no conflicts other places.

The deeper backspace on the rear has the tires sitting in close to the body.
Which makes me think a pair of 8" wide wheels would be just about right for these tires.

Running 32# in front and 31# in the back.
Rides pretty good.


The only bad part in all this is the about 3% change in the overall rear gear ratio.
The diff in the car is a 3.70 and spins along about 3000 rpm @ 70 mph.
Now it will be running about 3100 rpm at the same speed.
Not too bad, but I prbably need to start shopping for a 3.25 diff which would be ideal, but what seems to be most commonly available is the 3.00 diff.

I hate to pull the good performing 3.70's, but with the long desert highways we have it sure wouldn't hurt to slow the engine down a bit and the gas mileage would be improved as well.

Anyway, here's a few before and after pics for your perusal.











So far I'm liking it and one thing that made me think about changing to narrow WWs was that these were the tires we lusted after when we were running our Shoeboxes.

If I get tired of them I can always swap back to BWs, but it strikes me that having a couple sets of wheels and tires for the 31 would be neat.

The other thing that strikes me is that here is a heckuva set of wheels & tires for a Shoebox coupe.

If I only had one....

[Dave]

Im not seeing it jay.. Im not a ww guy anyway.. The black walls were the look i like.. Sorry but this is the internet and opinions are free...  
dave  

[EMSjunkie]

Im not seeing it jay.. Im not a ww guy anyway.. The black walls were the look i like.. Sorry but this is the internet and opinions are free...  
dave  

as mush as I hate too......I gotta agree with Dave-O, loose the white walls.

Vance

[phat rat]

X3

[kb426]

Jay, I grew up in the area of narrow ww. I think they are vehicle specific. When I look at your pic with the blackwalls, I'm excited for you cause it looks right. With the ww's, I lose some of my enthusiasm. It's not a big deal but it's going backward a little. My question to you is "why don't you have some kind of overdrive trans?"

[Bib_Overalls]

X5

[Crosley.In.AZ]

I do not even like raised white letter tires on most cars any more.... the narrow white walls make me think 1968.

[UGLY OLDS]

Sorry Jay....X7...... ....( Nice wheels though...     )

Bob.....