Wheel and tire recommendations?

If you are talking about at the end of the center link and attaches to the steering arm, that is what I am referring to.

I would bet that with both front tires jacked off the ground, you can get down there and see maybe 1/4" of movement in the steering before it moves the steering arm.

The proper fix for this is to track down a manual steering center link if you are dropping the power steering. I switched to manual steering and kept the power steering box, and it is a fine combo except for parallel parking is high effort.

 

I've actually ordered the missing brackets, as well as a lowering-bracket for the p/s.
Prefer to keep the powersteering

 

Also, does anyone here know what the original profile would be? 60? 65?

 

I have 15x3.5 with 165r./15 on front and 15 x10 with 275/60 on the rear and my car has the stock manual box on it even with 90/10 shocks on the front my car doesn`t wander ANY on the road (even at interstate speeds) You have a problem that tires and wheels wont fix.

 

That would be 78. Forget about the original tire size ... almost any other tire is bigger.

My white Comet had one of the original tires in the trunk. It had small sidewall ribs like tractor tires. It was a numeric size tire (very old school). It equated to a B78-14 (tiny by small ) at the time (early 80s) and was on a 14x4 five bolt wheel. Almost all other Fords were riding on 14x6 wheels at the time. I ran the original wheels with 195/70/14s on the front and 14x7 station wagon wheels with 245/60/14s out back and dog dish hubcaps. Kept the "sleeper" look for that car at first.

 

Alright Just recently heard that I needed to know the original wheel/tire dimentions and that I have to choose out from that. They're pretty strict about everything over here, our laws and regulations aren't all that friendly with this kind of cars

 

Sorry to hear about the legalities there.

I am pretty sure that later Grabbers came with D70-14 tires. Don't know about a 71 though.

Maybe someone else can chime in?

So do you get it inspected somewhere to register it with stock tire sizes on it,... and then change them out after it is registered?.... :evilsmile

 

That's a though But if I was to be pulled over I'd probably get a hefty fine But for shows etc I'm definitely putting the M/T slicks on it, makes it look so bad ass
Actually, I don't have to keep it completely stock, I am allowed to use wider tires and I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to use bigger rims. I just heard from a guy that just imported a Chevelle that he had to contact amcar.no about getting the original dimensions for it and get some paperwork from them, to take with him when having it inspected. I probably have to do it the same way.

 

Original size?... my guess here:

The tag on your door panel should show the original, as well as some factory optional, tire sizes. All should be considered "stock" except you don't need heavy load capacity any more.

I think the D70-14 6.45 was pretty standard:
70 series profile, 14" rim, 6.45" tread width (this was a bias ply tire)

Nowadays the modern/metric specs would be P185/70-14
70 series profile, 14" rim, 185mm tread width (or 7.4" since radials sit wider)

Stock tires were pretty small - I'd suggest P195/70-14 as a "stock" size for daily driving. Mine has standard steering and that's what I'll eventually do - the 205/60-14 would look meatier.

Someone posted this link in a previous message... pretty handy to compare side and front tire profiles. You can click to compare inches and mm:

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

(if that isn't clickable cut & paste it into a new window)

Whisky

 

Another thought too ... what cop over there is even going to have a clue about an American car that is likely older than he is?

 

Thanks whisky!

There aren't big chances that I'd get busted if I was to sneak out with my slicks, but if I for some reason was to be pulled over and had to show my license and registration, I could get a question about the tires..
But of course there's a 1% chance or so that something like this would even happen