WILL F70 RED LINES FIT STOCK 67 BARRACUDA?

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67BARRICONVERT

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Hi everyone,
I am shopping for Coker red line tires but I want radials. It looks like Coker does not make the D70 (what my car came with from the factory) or the E70 in radials. They do make the F70 in a radial. My question is will the F70 fit without rubbing? The F70 is one inch taller than the D70 and 1/2 inch wider tread section. My rims are original 14", 5x4 SBP, 5.5 inches wide, and 3.5 inch backspace.
The red lines are stupid expensive so I want to get it right !:lol:
 
I can’t say if they’ll fit your Barracuda, but I had Coker redline radials on my Belvedere. Key word is HAD. They were the worst tire I have ever had on a car.
 
Check out Diamondback tires. They do custom tires, can get you any redline you want. I have seen them do drag radial redlines. dbtires.com, or google custom redline tires.
And if you have tires on the rims you want to use, just turn the wheel so that it is closest to the front edge of the wheelwell opening, then add 1/2 the extra height that a f70 has, compaired to the tires you have, and see if it will clear. The tight spot on all a-body barracudas is the front edge.
Edit: check Both sides!
 
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Yes I think they will fit on the factory 5.5 rims. Fs were 7.75 treads, and so translate to about 9.25 section. They want 8" rims but you cannot put 14x8s on the front, at a backspace that won't at some point in the suspension travel/steering angle, either, put the inside sidewall into the strutrod or frame, or the outside one, into the fender; so you can't use a 14x 8 at all. You can use a 7, but it will pinch the beads in and the tire will not sit flat on the road at normal pressure; and so the outside two ribs will wear at a much slower rate than the centers. You can solve this by running a very low tire pressure, perhaps 24psi, but at that pressure, the car will handle very poorly.
If you try to run Fs on the 5.5 rims;
I mean you can put them on there but 5.5s are designed for E's max. What I mean is the factory put Es on 5.5s, but really, the equivalent to an E (7.35 tread) in P-metric is about a 175 section. Anyway, you can put an F on a 5.5, but you will not get decent handling on it, nor decent treadlife .
If you're just tip-toeing around,you might think that would be fine, but you have to also keep in mind that your front wheels and tires also have to handle about 85% of the brake load, so you really want the tires to be flat on the road at a decent tire-pressure.
To illustrate;
I also have a 2nd gen Barracuda(68) and:
on the front are 235/60-14s on 7.5" rims which spec out as 9.25 section when installed on a 6.5 rim. On my 7.5s that would be at least an inch more; so 10.25 section. The height is about 25 before being bolted on. I have to run these at 28psi to get even-across-the-tread wear.
On the back I have installed, into the stock tubs, as much as 325/50-15s on 10s which IIRC were ~13.8 section and close to 28 tall before being bolted on. To do that, I only had to move the springs and run a custom backspace.
After that, I narrowed the rear end so I could run off-the-shelf 4.5 backspace wheels, so now, I run 295/50-15s on 10" rims, at 24psi.

But as said; Polyglass was cutting edge in 1970, but the reputation of Polyglass is legendary. If you have a slanty and never drive over 30mph, you'd be ok.
On a 340 Swinger, those factory supplied E70-14s turned that car into the most evil handling POS-car a 17 year old kid could ever have. I learned to drive in one of those 340Swingers and I can attest to that it was like driving on ball-bearings all the time. I give all the credit of my driving prowess,lol, directly to those tires. I had several hi-school nicknames; like Ditcher, Ditch-hitter, and 360, and Circle Clown or something. It took me all of summer of 71 to master that plick, and then the tires were wore out.
I was so thankful when radials came out.
But gosh those raised white letters looked so nice all cleaned up and fresh-painted...
I got three pieces of advice; 1) never buy a cam for the rumble, and 2) never buy a Polyglass tire, and 3) never marry a divorced woman, while her ex still lives.
 
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Yes (on factory 5.5 wheels), spare is a VERY tight fit.

2019-03-30_010.jpg


Alan
 
Yes (on factory 5.5 wheels), spare is a VERY tight fit.

View attachment 1715591955

Alan
Thanks Alan,
Those are the same "bolt on design" wheel covers that came on my car from the factory. The tires on the car now are 205/70/r14 and when I do some measuring it looks like when I turn the wheels with the F70's there will be about 1/4 inches of clearance to the front lower wheel opening. Are yours that close?
donut derelicts.jpg

hood up.jpg
 
Anybody know what the torque is for the bolt?

Thanks Alan,
Those are the same "bolt on design" wheel covers that came on my car from the factory. The tires on the car now are 205/70/r14 and when I do some measuring it looks like when I turn the wheels with the F70's there will be about 1/4 inches of clearance to the front lower wheel opening. Are yours that close?
View attachment 1715592240
View attachment 1715592241
About 1/2"


Alan
 
Another thing I have noticed about the Coker Redlines is the sidewall markings are upside down. I don't remember ever seeing a tire with the lettering upside down. Is this the way the original Firestone redlines were?
cok-54710_xl.jpg
 
Another thing I have noticed about the Coker Redlines is the sidewall markings are upside down. I don't remember ever seeing a tire with the lettering upside down. Is this the way the original Firestone redlines were?
View attachment 1715592358
Yes, Firestone was making tires that way for a while. It's not just redlines, or the fact that they are re-pops.
 
Yes, Firestone was making tires that way for a while. It's not just redlines, or the fact that they are re-pops.
Thanks 69 340 GTS, That's kinda what I thought but I wanted to make sure. There is a review someone wrote on Summit Racings website which they claimed it was a tooling error on Coker's part and that Coker blew him off.
 
Thanks 69 340 GTS, That's kinda what I thought but I wanted to make sure. There is a review someone wrote on Summit Racings website which they claimed it was a tooling error on Coker's part and that Coker blew him off.
Nope, definitely the way Firestone did it in '69
 
Got the F70s mounted and they do not rub and they look great to me. Thanks everyone for the help.
red line tires left.jpg
red line tires right.jpg
 
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