TYRE TALK
RUBBERWORK 101
You’ve been doing your best to remain faithful to the vehicle’s originality and authenticity; after all that’s why you bought it.
Weekends have been spent scouring wreckers and parts warehouses, rif ling through endless boxes at swap meets and trolling the internet to assemble the parts to bring your ride back to life.
But what about the tyres? While it is tempting to throw the original hoops back on because they look okay, have lots of tread and hold their pressure, think again.
Like the rubber seals on the doors, windows and wiper blades, tyres lose their effectiveness and you might find, at an awkward moment, they are about as useful as those rock jobs on the Flintstone mobile.
And though no company has put a safety limit on the age of a tyre, as a rule of thumb, have a think about f linging them at the end of their warranty period, which is usually seven years.
We all know that driving wears tyres out. And we all know that some wear out faster than others depending on your driving style, the roads being used and the weight and size of the vehicle.
But we may not all know that one of the biggest enemies of tyres is exposure to sunlight, as it breaks down the chemicals used in their construction and explains why race tyres are delivered and stored in black bags.
A tip for readers living up north with more sunlight hours – get your car out of the sun. And for everyone who rarely drives their classic, jack it up and put the tyres in black plastic garden rubbish bags and store them in the dark during the long breaks.
While it seems obvious, tyres should be treated as the most vital
“RADIALS FIRST SURFACED IN 1949 WITH CITROEN 2CV AND LANCIA AURELIA AS EARLY ADOPTERS”
component on the whole car.
After all, you can have the best resto, an engine with the most mumbo, with the slippiest of diffs and the best-sorted suspension, but if what is connecting your ride to the road isn’t up to it, the rest ain’t worth squat.
The problem is you can’t just schlep down to the local tyre store and get classic car tyres off the shelf. Chances are, they may not make them anymore.
It’s a dilemma facing many classic car owners and if your vehicle pre-dates the 1970s, there’s a fair chance it originally rode on cross-ply (or bias-ply) tyres, even though radials had been around for a long time by then.
To be precise radials first surfaced in 1949 with Citroen 2CV and Lancia Aurelia as early adopters, including them as standard fitment.
So what is the difference between a cross-ply and a radial tyre?
Both are made by laying bands of rubber fabric over each other, with both having a unique construction method along with vastly different ride and handling characteristics.
The names hint at the difference; with a cross-ply tyre, the layers of rubber crisscross each other running at an angle of 45 degrees to the centre line of the tyre's tread, while radial tyres have the layers overlapping each other and running at right angles to the centre line as well as around the circumference.
Radial tyres are considered safer as they generally have a lower profile, with a wider tread, stiffer sidewalls and a bigger footprint, which in turn provide better traction.
On the other hand, cross-ply tyres usually create less road noise and are softer than radials, due to the extra f lex of the sidewalls.
Owners of older cars should remember that the engineers