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On 10 Nov 2003 at 7:36, Scott Taylor wrote: > On Saturday, November 8, 2003, at 05:30 PM, Keith Park wrote: > > > REALLY?? that means that when I restore the 65 I have to use Rag > > tires?? > > I've been using tubeless radials on 1965 and earlier VW rims for over > 20 years with no problems. Maybe I've just been lucky? VW, and other manufacturers, including the tire manufacturers, point out that with non-safety rims and radial tire, with their softer sidewalls, it is possible on hard cornering to push the bead of the tire sideways enough to deflate the tire almost instantaneously. Clearly this would be a bad thing to have happen while cornering hard. Personally, I don't understand why this would be more likely to happen with a radial tire. It seems to me that the softer sidewall of the radial tire would make it HARDER to transmit a localized side force to one region of the bead and thus unseat it. It's also possible that the safety rims were just an innovation that hit the automotive field in the mid sixties and that everyone introduced them at about the same time, which just happened to be about the same time that tubeless tires AND radial tires were becoming popular. If so, then it's possible that the safety rims are really better for both radial and bias ply tires, but that the message got confused by the time that it got put in the service manuals. I have Mercedes info on the same subject, however, and, while their literature is usually a step better than VW's, in the end their message is the same: Don't use radial tires with non-safety rims unless you also use tubes. If someone out there can clarify this I'd love to hear about it. -- Jim Adney jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711-3054 USA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org