Tire sizes and actual tire sizes - revisited?

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Pony Ruiz

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Well, I am posting up again my tire issue hoping for a little more input/direction.

To make a long story shorter....

I have an 83 interstate with a bridgestone that fits on the back with room to spare on each side of the swing arm. A dunlop of the same size - (#'s are the same...) was rubbing on the brake stay and barely cleared on the right. Needless to say I took it off.

So thinking the b.stones were narrower I went to put one on the front and it is physically 1/4" wider than the dunlop that is on there. Both tires have the same size #'s on the sidewall. The dunlop was rubbing - due mostly to a fender rail that was installed before the fender thereby decreasing the space. I took off the rail and it doesn't rub now but I know the Bridgestone will if I put it on there.

I am down to either running with two different brand tires, no fender, or try another fender ( an 82 seems wider - anything to do with the oem fork brace?)

Anybody with an 83 run into this? What did you do to resolve it?

thanks
 
gee pony there sould be no problem with fork brace .....i have both yrs here ....im not sure whats up pony but if it was me i could live with two different tires brands as opposed to keep trashing tires over it ....but it seems that they sould fit ....lets see some tire numbers on the front tires and back tires so they can be looked up....
 
JD,

I'm with ya but the reality is these things don't measure the same.

120/90-18 front 140/90/16 rear

I couldn't believe the Dunlop rear was 1/2" wider at the widest point than the Bstone.
the other strange thing was my 82 fender is wider than my 83 fender. WTF ( an no that isn't "wow that's fantastic")
I am really not into trashing tire$ either. the ones that were on there had maybe 200 miles on them.

They seemed to be good at first - or I was verrrrry slow to notice.

thanks bro - hope youre doing well. What tires are you running?
Can I get by with a little narrower tire on that 120 rim? Like a 110? or is that not the # I need to worry about - the width... I'll have to check that but got to run to work.... Pouring concrete today.

I will run with two different until I figure something else out.
 
FYI - On my '82........I am using the Bridgestone S11's of the following size:

120/90H18 front
140/90H16 rear

I have no issues with clearance.
 
New tires actually "grow"a bit after they are installed. The air pressure and heating and cooling cause the tires to expand a little over time. Some compounds "grow" a little more than others.
 
this has got me puzzle some pony ....icould see that this swingarm could be change to earlier yr and cause problems ...but the front is just hard for me to except ....measure the tree width maybe it has some other frontend on it like a gl500 they fit and look the same but narrower ....measure on the rear at the final drive to where the tire cutout starts ...this would tell if it has a 80-81 swingarm ....i have never heard of a front tire size right not fitting .....measure from tube to tube on the forks ,,,i think for sure when you said the fender was different that you might have a gl500 front forks :mrgreen:
 

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