Tires for project's that take A LOOONG time?

[85 Jimmy]

I notice some people that have projects that take a while to complete, or get drive able, get tires in the very beginning of the project, is there any reasoning for that? Is there any concern of dry rot or any other tire defects that come with age appearing when it's actually ready to drive?

The reason I ask is that I have a 66 mustang that is a 6 cylinder car. 6 cylinder cars came with 4 lug wheels. Well, I don't want to keep the 4 lug wheels and am upgrading everything to V8 stuff so I can get 5 lug wheels, and while I'm at it I'm going to upgrade from 4 wheel drums to discs all the way around. Right now I'm in the parts collecting phase and all I need is the disc brake stuff and the wheels/tires. Here's the kicker, when I joined the Navy I left the car with my dad, who moved to Virginia with it, 1,000 miles away from me. So, I don't know when I'll be able to do the conversion.

And because everyone likes pictures. Yes, the picture is from 2005, but nothing has changed since then other than a T5 conversion and I got rid of the points distributor for an electronic one with an MSD box.

 

[Kay86K5]

For the off-road world, most purchase the tires first cause if you have your desired tire size handy while building, you can build the vehicle around them to accommodate (suspension travel, sheet metal clearance, ect.). And as long as you store the tires in a dry climate, you shouldn't have to worry about dry rot.

 

[nvrenuf]

For me, it was money. Tires have become so expensive it's crazy, when I parted my old truck I bought tires because I had a lump sum to work with. It's easier to nickel and dime the other stuff, much harder to build up $2000+ without dipping in to it.

 

[85 Jimmy]

The tires I'm looking at are around $100 a piece, depending on wheel size. So dropping a huge lump on them won't be an issue.

 

[dyeager535]

Tires have about an 8 year life depending on which manufacturer you talk to. Zero point to spend good money on tires that will sit and dry rot. Used to be pretty easy to find snow tires mounted on wheels for cheap, if I needed wheels and tires just to roll something around, I'd just watch craigslist for a cheap set. It costs $5 around here per tire (edit: for disposal of used tires), so someone is going to have to pay $20 just to remove the tires, why not just sell the wheels and tires with that "savings" factored in?

FWIW I've got Goodyears on my car that has sat for 16 years, and they still hold air (edit: a couple hold air long-term, a couple slowly lose air). No way I'd drive on them, but moving the car around in the garage and driveway I'm not concerned. But I also got the tires free.

My actual *experience* with tire life are my BFG AT's I bought brand new. I ran them pretty much since I put the truck together, and at 8 years, the tires were slowly losing air. They MIGHT have had 20K miles on them, they still looked nearly new wear-wise. Upon testing with soap/water, the cracks that were not evident from a normal look, were very evident. The tread blocks were all cracked at the base. Nearly microscopic, but clearly leaking air. These were tires that were almost never exposed to sunlight. The tire dealer who sold them to me looked at them, and said if just doing short local trips he'd probably keep running them, but for anything that might leave you stranded or highway running, he wouldn't.

 

[jekquistk5]

I plan on buying used for my next build. Then buying new before she hits the road.

 

[Truckman4life]

I just kinda lucked into my tires otherwise I like to have a set of rollaround tires and wheels and keep the good ones in storage if already purchased for clearance checking or go buy them last.

 

[snowdriver]

I wouldn't get carried away at all with wheels or tires till you are ready to drive it

 

[85 Jimmy]

What I'll probably do is after I regear this rearend I just got and convert it to disc brake, is get the wheels and some cheap/used tires off craigslist to roll the axle around. I don't think I'll want to roll the axle around on just the brand new discs I put on. I could get some furniture dolly things, but. I'll need the wheels eventually anyway.