The CNC 4x4 Club wrench day was held in March 2007 at Tire King in Raleigh, NC. Sorry that Jamie didn't take pics of anyone working on the Jeeps. :)
My 1990 K5 Blazer has been running mis-matched tires for the past year or two. I had factory Chevy aluminum 15x7 rims on the front with 33x12.50 General Grabber MTs, and 16x9.5 steel wheels in the rear with 33x12.50 Swamper Radials. I wanted new tires, but I plan to move to 1-ton axles in about a year. Tires which were not too big for my 1/2-ton axles and 3.73 gears would be too small for the future 1-ton axles. I settled on some semi-tall, skinny tires that I will run on my 87 Samurai after the Blazer gets 1-tons. So no money wasted. I brought my new Super Swamper TSLs to be mounted at the wrench day. The tires are Q78-15 (35.5x10.50/15) bias ply, and I brought a used set of 6-lug 15x7 aluminum rims I got off a 79 Jeep Wagoneer. I had to clean the beads of the Waggy rims with a wire brush. There was fix-a-flat used with one or two of them before, so they were pretty nasty. I should have checked them out earlier so I would have had time to clean them better. But they ended up sealing fine anyway. Good thing Ken was there to supervise me! I also should have polished up the rims beforehand, but that worked out too thanks to Ken - more about that later.
Thanks to Andy Herr of Tire King for mounting my new tires for me. He dismounted my old tires, mounted the new ones, dismounted my spare, and mounted a used 35x12.50 BFG MT for a spare. He even hooked me up with some sweet shorty chrome valve stems - Bling! I'll be going to Andy for some more tire mounting, and new tires for my Jetta when it needs them. Highly recommended!
I was encouraged to swap on the new tires/rims in the Tire King parking lot. The pic on the left shows the old mis-matched tires/rims. The pic in the middle shows one Q78 in the rear, and the old 33 in the front. The pic on the right shows the new Q78s front and rear.
I knew there would be no tire clearance issues with the rear wheel openings. The rear tires tuck inside the fenders with plenty of room. The inner sidewall of the rear tires rub on the inside wall of the rear wheelwell when fully stuffed, but it's a smooth surface, so no problem. The old 33s rubbed there too.
I also knew that the front tires would have clearance issues with the lower rear edge of the front wheelwell. The lugs would rub there when turning, even when not flexing. I flexed on the CNC RTI ramp, and there was major interference, as shown in the pics.
Luckily I had brought my cordless sawzall along! :) I used duct tape to mark the line I wanted to cut and to protect the paint on the fender - it worked great. I went down at an angle , following the edge of the inner fender. I'll have to come back later and spot weld the cut edge of the fender to the inner fender to keep it from flopping, unless I can think of something less permanent. Thanks to Ken for supervising again, and Jeff for bravely holding the vise grips on the fender lip to keep it from shaking. Jeff has never heard about how I mangled my index finger with a midget pocket knife. My sawzall was put to good use by others. Good thing I brought 3 batteries and extra blades - they all got used. There were a bunch of rusted Jeep bolts that needed to be cut.
Here's the finished product. The tire only rubs on the rear edge of the inner fender at full stuff while turning, and it's a smooth surface, so should be fine. If I notice any issues, I'll trim the inner fender or see if I can bend it back some.
As mentioned earlier - the wheels were really dirty, and I wished I had cleaned them ahead of time. Ken mentioned that he had some sweet aluminum wheel cleaner that I could spray on. He said it would clean the rims with no scrubbing. Just spray on, wait one minute, and then hose off. This stuff is an acid - don't use it on clear-coated rims, don't get it on you, and make sure it's rinsed off thoroughly. Here are the results for a rear wheel, before and after.
This front wheel was the dirtiest. As you can see, I need to hit the rims with the acid again because I missed some spots. Here's the front before and after.
Thanks again to everyone for their help! We can't wait to test these out at Uwharrie in April!