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series 3 wheels and tryes


bangbang

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taking to my mechanic mate he say i have the old metric wheels and tyres, he thinks 750 15 and as they are persied from being sat it would be better to replace with more standard size, what are your thoughts and what whould be the best size wheels and tyres to get?

will defender and disco wheels fit a 1972 series three with out any modification?

Thanks

Dave

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Series L/R rims are 16-inch, so they would be 750/16's, which are still available in various tread patterns. You could fit 235/85/16 tyres, but although a lot of people do it - it's a little too wide for the rims. 109's have a terrible turning circle as it is (38ft I think), and fitting a fatter tyre on a standard series rims will mean that you have to adjust the steering lock stops to stop the inside wall of the tyre from rubbing on the chassis side rails, which means an even bigger turning circle (but it's not much more).

Les.

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Have you got an 88 or a 109?

88's were fitted with 600 x 16 crossplies as standard. These are commonly replaced by 205 x 16 tyres whcih are the original Range Rover size. (Usual radial rules apply if changing - not mix on an axle and if you must have 2 of each (get advice from fitter) radials must go on the back. SWB's have a turning circle on normal tyres of about 38ft.

109's have wider rims and were originally fitted with 750 x 16 crossplies. To make life simple there are radials made in the same size which will work fine but you MUST examine the tyres carefully to find out if they are radial or crossply. (As you'll have worked out cross ply are always sized in imperial units (6.00 = 6 in tread width) and radials are usually sized with a metric tread width measurement (205 = just over 8in). LWB's have a turning circle of 48ft.

Many 88's have the wider 109 wheels and run on 109 sized tyres.

So if its a SWB with standard SWB rims 205 x 16 Range Rover sized tyres will be fine. (rolling radius is very early the same as 600 x 16 and so speedo stays correct. (1536 turns per mile. 7.50's require a LWB speedo with 1408 TPM))

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  • 9 years later...

Don't forget all N American series were originally fitted with 15" wheels as that's what they had fitted on their Jeeps and 16" were hard to get. Most have been converted to 16s but my series 3 is still running 15s with 235/75/15s. Just makes them a little slower on the highway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have 7.50 R16 tyres on a mixture of S3 and tube type defender wheels on an 88.  The tyres are Goodyear Wranglers that I collected over a period of a few months.  &.50s are still available new mostly in Michelin or Avon brands but there are others about.

I dont understand your mechanics comment about old metric wheels.  Unless you have a very very early S1 then your wheels will be 16inches diamter and 5" wide for standard SWB up to S3, 5.5" wide for LWB and Defender and some other variations are 6.5" wide.  S1, S2 S3 and early defenders were all tubed type, later defenders were tubeless.  Steel wheels are very cheap often even being given away, you just need to keep an eye on the S1 and S2 forums.  Tyres can be found on Ebay.

Peter

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