Wanted: tires; 11:00-16

[Bob Phillips]

Can anyone help me locate a set of new or good uses knobby Michelin type tire as used on armoured 6x6 type vehicles? I would like to put them on a 15cwt CMP and the greater diameter will give me just a little more road speed. Any help greatly appreciated !!

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Bob

How about these metric Michelin....

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-tires-rims/ci...ires/530342902

There was a guy in Hudson Quebec who had cornered the market on the surplus 11:00 series..... he sold most of them years ago to the USA market for 4x4 rock climbers..... he was getting more $$$$$ down South than selling in Canada.

Cheers

[Bob Carriere]

Not much on 11:00 even looking for private individual postings.....BUT.....
What about the 16.5 Hummer tires available everywhere....?

Thinking about how tight the regular 16 inch 9:00 tires were when we installed them on yard rims. In fact some even advocated shaving the bead to make them fit better. We opted for sandblasted rims painted with Slick glossy POR 15 and lots of snotty tire lub and grunts.

I wish I could borrow just one surplus Hummer tire to try and see how they fit on a CMP rim........ or would the CMP 6.5" rim width be a problem...?

Comments from the peanut gallery welcomed...... if the readily available 16.5 tires worked we would be in heaven.

Cheers

Bob C

[rob love]

16.5 tires are perfect for the CMP rims. I have them on my CMP trailer and they have no issues.

[Bob Carriere]

Thanks Rob

That could be a break for us....

how about the narrower rim of the CMP at 6.5 versus 8.5 on the H1....does it make the thread run only on the center????

Next question.....what is the bolt pattern of a CMP

For example.... a standard rim will be shown as 5 bolts on 4.5 in. diametre or as a 5 over 4.5.......

A Hummer rim is 8 over 6.5

So a CMP would be 8 over ??????

Will check in the barn tomorrow but would be nice since NOS Hummer rims are now going for $75.00 in Toronto

Cheers

[rob love]

I doubt the H1 rims will fit the cmp. Even if the bolt pattern is right, I suspect the drums of the CMP take up a lot more room than the discs of the hummer.

I am not using hummer tires on mine, but rather older 9.50x16.5 (or they may be 8.25s) truck tires, which is not too far out from the size of the original 9x16s.

As an aside, I have noticed some of the Chinese tire tread patterns are starting to look like they might be a good fit for our CMPs. Here is a shot of some 8.25x16 tires on ebay right now for $175 a pair.

[Bob Carriere]

Looks more like rock quarry tires........ sure could use some sipes for traction on wet pavement.

Do truck tire shops still have machines to cut sipes in commercial tires??

Cheers

[Jack Innes]

The original tires on the Ram amphibian have sipes cut into the ND tread. This was done as part of the prototype development for better control on wet pavement. Probably in desperation when they found that the truck will go 70 mph!
You see some truck tires marked "regroovable" which would indicate the process is still done. I have not tried it but perhaps a router would do the job.

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Jack

Those tires were cut with a hot grooving tool. Something like the old fashion electric soldering iron with a very thin U shaped blade..... it would stink like hell but it moved through rubber like the proverbial hot knove in butter. There was a guide plate that allowed adjustment/control over the depth of the cut.

The sipe cuts.... not even sure fi that is the wirte spelling.... was done by mounting tires in a special jig and the cutters were a gang of very thin rotating blades arcing around the tires at some 45 degrees.... it would make about 6 to eight cuts per pass...... much like the Michelin ice tires they now sell...... the cutters were guided over the whole diameter of the tire.

I believe there was a recapping facility in Ottawa in the 70s that had such a sipe cutting machine..... I know they also regrooved recapped tires for buses at one time.



Cheers

[rob love]

Pretty much every unit and every base maintenance got the re-grooving tool some 15 years back. It cam about when the HLVW LCMMs checked into their tire useage to see that 90% of the tires that had been replaced were still serviceable. On many of them, the stabilizer bars were being mistaken for wear bars. With a bit of time cutting, the tires could have a bit of life extension.

That said, I never saw one used. Too many jobs and not enough mechanics.

[Bob Carriere]

So Bob is still looking for 11:00 x 16 tires.

Best bet now is with private individuals reselling Michelin.

Have you tried the Power Wagon Forum as they were very popular with the restorers of flat fender PW of 1946-57.
Cheers

[rob love]

The 11.00s have been out of the military system for a while now, replaced by the 325-85R16, as Bob linked to back in the second post.

[Robin Craig]

Rob,

In the UK, in that former life before the WPP relocated me here , I had a side job working for the local tyre shop doing re-grooving using the tool Bob described.

They had made up a jig that enabled you to mount a tyre onto it and stand and push the tool through the pathways of the grooves, as you ran out of tyre one stepped on the pedal and that would release the brake and allowed the tyre to rotate a ways and voila fresh tyre to work with.

It was a mindless smelly job best done with a fan behind you off to the side a bit.

I did it while saving for airfare to Ibiza, that den of vulgarity in the Med.

A good entry level job for the youth of today.

R

[Bob Phillips]

Hi All: I have found a US source of NOS 1100x16 tires. They are not cheap, but my interest was to get as large a diameter 16 inch tire as I could in order to pick up the road speed a bit. The use of a 16.5 inch tire sounds interesting but...I always thought one of the issues with 16cmp rims/tires was the style of bead. It is essentially square in profile like a 20 inch tire. The US military 16 inch tires were like this although they had a 5 degree bead where it slipped over the rim so it helped to turn a 16th of an inch off the rims to smooth them and allow the tapered ( for want of a better word) bead. So what about the 16.5 inch wheels? Do they have a straight/square bead profile like a 20 inch tire or a tapered bead like a modern truck tire? Anybody know??...BP

[Bob Carriere]

Those are Hummer tires/rim.

The CMP rim with its slight 5 degrees taper is something like a 3/16 tighter near the rim. The modern 9x16 michelin will stretch quite nicely with proper rim preparation and lub. Not sure how loose or tight the 16.5 modern Hummer tire would fit but consider this...

Both the CMP rims and the Hummer rims are a two part assembly with the tire fitted from the center out then bolted together. I beleive that such rims have a much more agressive/strong bead that is not intended to be stretched over the edge of a one piece rim......CMP and Hummer rims also have a flat center section which does not provide room for a normal tire bead to be pulled in during the one piece rimming process. I beleive that a Hummer tire and a CMP tire are less likely to roll off the rim during a flat situation.... and both, with a proper spacer can be run flat.

I would suspect that the Hummer tire bead profile woudl be somewhat similar to the squarish CMP British tires.

I have a set of brand new 9x16 Michelin tires mounted on new Steyr rims...6 bolts metric..... the professional tire shop will not attempt to remove the tires as they cannot guarantee they will not damage the bead during removal..... they have suggested deflating the tires and cutting the rims...which is useless anyways ......using a thin blade grinder cutting near the center so the rim will split in two.

There is a surplus tire dealer/importer in Toronto/Bolton selling Hummer tires and rims.... on Kijiji.... may be worth paying him a visit.

Cheers