12 replies to this topic

[jomaoliveira79]

My 850 has 5.10 10 tyres with tubes. The wheels are 3,5 inch wide original steel ones.

As the (camac) cross ply tyres are becoming real old and hard - at least 20 years old, despite good thread- I will change them, probably with 145 radial Falkens or Camac, because Camac plant is just 10 miles from where I live.

Do I need to buy new tubes with tyres or will it be OK to use new radial tyres without inner tubes?

Thank you all.

[whistler]

Some early steel wheels were not suitable for tubeless tyres. You might need an expert to look at them if you're going tubeless.
I always ran tubes in tubeless tyres back in the late 60's anyway.

[tiger99]

It has been a long time since I had an 850 with crossplies! I changed it to tubeless radials way back in about 1968 to get better tyre life. It was a 1961 van.

I suspect that the wheels will be ok. Your local tyre dealer should be able to advise. Tubes are often said to be not a good idea where lots of hard driving is anticipated, as you supposedly get heat buildup due to friction between tube and tyre.

How much that applies to a mere 850 is unknown to me. All I can say is that I cornered mine ferociously, because it had little straight line performance. But, still, I think that an 850 should be ok with tubes fitted. A Cooper S, perhaps not.

Have fun!

[Boycie]

I've used tubes with tubeless tyres, never had any problems.  I dare say some modern tyres are less suitable for having an inner tube, but I think you'll be fine on an 850 Mini and would go that route again myself if I had to.

[cal844]

I have a set of 12 inch minilites with Yokohama's which have tubes fitted(beads were leaking!)

[timmy850]

If you look through the original Mk1 owners manuals you'll find they mention tubeless from the factory:

http://mk1-performan....uk/manuals.htm

 

My experience is:

Some shops won't install without tubes as the rims don't have a "safety bead"

Tyres that are designed as tubeless often have rough bits inside the casting and can cause the tubes to leak

I had many tyre leaks with the tubes and never had any when I found a shop that did them tubeless..

[jomaoliveira79]

You're right timmy850, and I saw too that 145 tyres were factory optional, and all of them tubeless (although if you check the manual of Cooper S models tubes were fitted  )

A curious thing is that here in Portugal I saw cars up to 1980 in the original documents only stating 5.20 tyres! 

At that time cross ply 5.20 were long gone obsolete...

 

Only drawback for me of fitting 145 is getting them registered on documents as it is circa 150 pounds and not doing so is an MOT advisory and may get a circa 200 pounds ticket by the police and car seized until new MOT!

 

Best regards to all of you.

[tiger99]

I wish we could still get 5.20 crossplies! The handling was truly delightful for a novice driver, the power-on understeer coming in ever so gently at a lower speed that it would with radials, and the power-off oversteer also coming in fairly gently but very distinctly. You learn a lot about handling, relatively safely, with crossplies. Avon used to be the best brand, by far.

[jomaoliveira79]

Update: CAMAC tyres made these days are a LOT different from the past. Got a new set of 145R10 tyres from them (factory purchased) and found them supersoft! Before, and even new, they had a very hard compound and were badly regarded even here in Portugal.
It has a period thread also; looks fantastic on any 60/70's car.
They were mounted tubeless on professionally refurbished old 10x3.5" steel wheels and hold air perfectly.
Last year I also refurbished car suspension (M-parts rubber cones, standard oil Sachs shock absorbers and HiLo's set on standard height) and let me say car's comfort is UNBELIEAVABLE for a mini, certainly better than my Peugeot 107!

Edited by jomaoliveira79, 20 May 2018 - 08:23 PM.

[gazza82]

I wish we could still get 5.20 crossplies! The handling was truly delightful for a novice driver, the power-on understeer coming in ever so gently at a lower speed that it would with radials, and the power-off oversteer also coming in fairly gently but very distinctly. You learn a lot about handling, relatively safely, with crossplies. Avon used to be the best brand, by far.

 

You can ... https://www.vintaget...er=51&width=343

[Ivor Badger]

In the early radial days, there were crossply and radial tubes. You were not supposed to git crossply tubes to radials, but you could reverse the fitting. eventually the just made radial tubes and said they could be fitted to both tyres. so just check you have radial tubes in case the tubes come from the 1960s. On the other hand, Dunlop only made racing tubes in 10" marked for crossplys and they got fitted to radials on works rally cars. Because of the valve stem for the curious.

[Cooperman]

We used to fit tubes to the earlier radial Weather-master type (SP44, Goodyear Ultra-Grip, etc) tyres fitted to our rally cars in the 60's & 70's. That was when most of us had steel wheels and a bent rim with a tubeless tyre on a steel wheel meant a flat tyre. It was found that a tube could provide some protection when a rim was bent and enable the car to get to the end of the stage or section.

I certainly used tubes on my 998 Cooper and Cooper 'S' rally cars and never had any problems.

When alloy wheels became very widely used the tubeless tyre was used without tubes.

[Ivor Badger]

We used to fit tubes to the earlier radial Weather-master type (SP44, Goodyear Ultra-Grip, etc) tyres fitted to our rally cars in the 60's & 70's. That was when most of us had steel wheels and a bent rim with a tubeless tyre on a steel wheel meant a flat tyre. It was found that a tube could provide some protection when a rim was bent and enable the car to get to the end of the stage or section.

I certainly used tubes on my 998 Cooper and Cooper 'S' rally cars and never had any problems.

When alloy wheels became very widely used the tubeless tyre was used without tubes.

 

It was also an RAC requirement that tubes be fitted to wheels used on an unsealed surface. This was dropped in the early 70s after an RAC rally when Dunlop/Ford pointed out that most of their punctures came from dirt and stones carried into the new tyre by a reused tube during tyre  replacement.