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MG TD TF 1500 - Radial tires for TF

The bias ply tires on my TF are long in the tooth while not covering many road miles. As new tires are needed any recomendations for readily accessible radial tires for our cars?.Have run on the bais plys for ten years without tubes and no problems. any thoughts pro or con on merits of inner tubes.
Jeff Payne

Jeff many on the board seem to go for Kumo's. I have Verdstiens on my TF as thats what The wheel shop had in stock. I'd really prefer some Michelen XZ 's. As far as the tubes go it's a two sided argument. With the stiffer side bias ply tire I would not be too concerned about running without tubes. The wheels for these cars are designed for a tube type tire bead. You will most likely not find a radial tire that is built for a tube type rim these days. Many tire shops will not put a tube in a tubeless tire because of worries about heat build up from friction, causing blow outs. On the other hand because of a more flexible side wall on the radials I think you run a greater risk of rolling the tire off the rim during cornering in which case the tube would be of some use to help keep the tire on the rim. Me, I would go for tubes in the tire and reguardless of which tire you choose I would demand a Michelen tube. Make sure they talc the tube and tire. Just my thoughts.

PS. I thought you were in New York?

LaVerne
LED DOWNEY

LaVerne....thanks for the input,local tire shop carries a 165/80 r15 from NEXEN (japanese ) will look into mechelins. I am still in new york have no idea why my location changed
Jeff Payne

Jeff;

Coker tire had 165/15 Michelen XZX about a month ago
$153.00 ea plus shiping. Also a sorce for other choices. cokertire.com

Regards
Doug
DOUG BULTHAUS

If you have the new Daytona wire wheels, the Vredestein 15 165 Classic Sprint are nice. I have them.
K E MURPHY

I put a set of Kuhmo Radials on my TD with disc wheels. Improved the ride and handling considerably. I have run them without tubes and have put several hundred miles and a lot of hard tight corners on them with no trouble at all. Tires have been covered a lot in the archives with a lot of strong opinion put forth. In my case these tires will get old before they wear out on this light car that only gets driven occasionally. The one thing that most people seemed to agree on was that tires should be changed every 5-7 years for safety sake.
P.W. Lester

Jeff - If you put tubes in a radial tire, make sure that you get tubes that are made for radial tires or you will have problems with holes wearing in the tubes. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Great luck with the Michelins from Coker, a guy in town with a TF has had good success with the Khumo's. I had awful luck with cheap "Metric" or something or other, major shake and shimmy on my TD. George
George Butz

Jeff
Also if you install tubes in a radial tire please check the inside of each tire for a little rectangular patch with info. This will chafe the tube and let the air out. I have had it happen.It's about 1 inch long by 3/4" high
Sandy Sanders
conrad sanders

Jeff:

I have the NEXEN's with no tube on my TD Mark II. It was the only tire I could get locally except for Kumho's. I didn't mind paying for the tires, I just did not want to pay the extra for shipping. Shipping was almost as much as the tires. Don't get me started on Kumho - I've had some bad experience with them. Before I installed the new tires, I had the rims straightened and trued. Then a new powder coat paint job. It feels like a different car from the old bias plies.
John Masters

At the risk of offending someone I am going to suggest you get the cheapest imported radials available. As our hobby cars spend most of their time in the garage it makes little sense to me to be buying quality tyres, these I reserve for the car that takes my children to school. When I am driving my TF I am flogging it on the local twisty roads or on bitumen in a motorkhana. I give my cheap tyres a hard time and when they are worn I have no trouble replacing them. I have never had a tyre failure that was not caused by a foreign object. I use tubes as I am running spoke wheels.
When you have radials on the TF you will find cornering is quite different to when X-plys were fitted. The gradual oversteer will be replaced by better grip, leading to more sudden oversteer in extreme cornering. Go alone to a quiet road where you can practice your cornering technique on the new tyres. The extra g-forces may expose weak points in your wheel bearings and suspension.

Cheers,
Matthew.
Matthew Magilton

Hi Matthew,

I agree with your comments re using cheaper radials on our 50years+ old cars. I also experienced rather sudden oversteer with radials a couple of years back, on a 'country bend' that tightened, and nearly lost the TF! The car coming the other way must also have experienced something too, but thankfully I regained my side of the road just in time!

To make matters worse the car behind, who saw the whole thing, was an unknown to me, late midget, and out of shame, I quickly took the next left, up a minor road, to stop and contemplate life and the Universe etc, as one does at such times!

We are never too old to make mistakes, and hopefully I'm still able to learn from mine, by improving my cornering technique!

Cheers, John.
J C Mitchell

I, just yesterday, mounted newly powdercoated, straightened, and shod wheels on my TD. I went with the Hankook radials with tubes, and my first impression was a good one. A quick spirited drive showed them to be smooth and sticky. Time will of course tell, but they seem to compare favorably to the Dunlop sp-20 radials that came off.
I inflated them to 25 psi, all around, and I'm wondering what the consensus is as far as pressure.
Steven Tobias

Steven,

I have no experience with the Hankook radials and at the present time, have the Dunlop SP20 tires on the TD. Tire pressures have been discussed at great length in past threads and it has been a very interesting subject.
A lot has to do with how you will be using your MG. I am personally interested in preserving the TD, after the time and effort of the complete tear down and reassembly of the car. With the present tires, I have found by experimenting, that 24 psi front and 22 psi rear, provides a soft ride and less transfer of road shock to the car, while still giving a good degree of handling on corners. These pressures would not be suitable for very high speed use or perhaps minor competition but will keep the car from shaking it's self apart. These are my thoughts on the subject.

George Raham
TD 4224
G. L. Raham

If you have a TF with original WW, then you are commited to having tubes. My preference on our TF is for bias ply, low cost tyres. We have used LTR Sports Tire 5.50 x 15 tubeless, for the last 10 years and have no problems. Inflation is at 18 psi, giving a good ride and allowing you to have a controlled, even "drift" thru long sweeping turns. You never get that sudden understeer/oversteer experienced on radials. A local, SCCA Vintage MG TD racer here in Michigan uses bias ply tyres for that sole reason, they are predictible.
Hard cornering forces generated by radials on a T-Type car are not conducive to wheels or the suspension which was designed for bias ply tyres. I have seen shredded wire wheels and heard the universals hammering on the drive tunnel as the rear axle shifted sideways under high load put on them by radials.
Let face it guy, we are not clones of Sterling Moss, just MG puttzers.
colin stafford

I don't know...I've run my TD with radial tires for around 10 years. I drive it pretty aggresively, but never on the track. I haven't been bitten by this sudden over and understeer that so many of us have mentioned. I find that it drives very similarly to my old MGB with radials; a car with remarkably similar suspension geometry. It oversteers very much like any other car that I've driven with independent front suspension and rigid rear axle; such as the Alfa, Fiat 124, older Triumph, etc. Perhaps one of the problems is the great unknown about tire pressures. Maybe we could learn something if we checked the tread with an infrared temp. probe after some hard driving to see if we were getting even contact.
It seems that we are pretty much evenly split between mid-twenties psi and 30-32 psi. I think that I am going to push my new tires up to around 27-28 and see how it goes.
I used to think that the higher inflation would shake my car apart, because it rattled around so much. Since I put in a new windshield and everything associated with it is tight and solidly mounted, it feels and sounds like a different car. It seems that the scuttle shaking around was amplified by the loose windshield glass and components.
Steven Tobias

Steven,

I like your idea of trying different pressures and what I would recommend is to go to a section of road that has some tight curves and some long curves. Start with high pressures like 32 psi front and rear, and drive the road at a comfortable speed. Note how the car feels. Drop the pressures to 26 psi front and rear and compare how the car feels over the same road, at the same speed. This should give you some idea where you would prefer the tire pressures. Once you have made this decision, you can fine tune them by moving the pressures up or down, a pound or two, front and rear, to suit your type of driving and the roads you drive.
Over many years, I have found that the rear tires can stand to be a couple of pounds lower than the front tires and gives the passengers a more comfortable ride. This can be a fun thing to experiment with and will give you a good insight into how the car performs. I would be very interested in your results.

George Raham
TD 4224
G. L. Raham

John and Steve - what color did you have used for powder coating? I need to have that one on the wheels for our TD. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Dave, The color that I used was "silverdillo", made by Tiger DriLac. I think that it is a pretty decent match, with a little bit of gloss. I resisted the recommendation of my powder coat shop to overcoat with clear. I think that it would have made it too glossy.
One problem that we ran into, was that the joint between the wheel center and rim (which is riveted) produced a great many gas bubbles when curing in the oven. All of the wheels showed some tiny bubbles, but one was so bad that it had to be stripped and redone. My guy's theory is that there was some ancient sealer put in the joint by the factory-to prevent rust. If I ever refinish wheels again, I would consider painting them with polyurethane paint for this reason.
Steven Tobias

David,

In May 2002, I had my wheels done by Top Gun Coatings Inc. The invoice describes the Powder Coat as "Mirror Silver/Clear". The wheels came out absolutely beautiful and have been on the car since that time. They still look as good as they did when first done and all I have had to do is wash them as required. It is a nice colour and goes very well with the black car. I have had no problems such as Steve mentions above. If you refer to Gordon's picture forum, you can see the at least one wheel after 6 years on the road. Not a stone chip anywhere and after putting up with "painted wheels" for so many years, I would never go that route again. Hope this helps your decision.

George Raham
TD 4224
G. L. Raham

This thread was discussed between 19/03/2009 and 31/03/2009

MG TD TF 1500 index

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