widest tyres to fit 3500

C

cfcrotweiller

Member
Evening!
What are the widest tyres that would fit a standard Rover 3500? Im looking to widen the wheel arches but first would like to know what the maximum would be before changing anything?
Are we looking at 195? 205? Or more?
Cheers!
Andy
 
205 but this carries the proviso that the body panels and chassis alignment is symmetrical, some cars are not and may need a little nudging however 205 is doable with out any serious modification and in most cases none.

Graeme
 
That's 205 at full rolling diameter - 205/65 X 15 or 205/70 X 14 - if you're prepared to go under diameter then you can perhaps get away with 215's, perhaps 215/50 X 15 or 215 55 X 14.

These figures assume that the tyre - and therefore the wheel - is at the ideal offset to place the tyre centrally in the mudguard on the base unit. This is formed by the side of the boot floor and rear face of the D post. Wheel-arches are not a restriction - the problem is all in the base unit.

The only known wheel that is readily available to achieve this is the SD1 Vitesse cross spoke alloy. this has the advantage of being 15" which allows a much better range of suitable tyres.

Chris
 
cfcrotweiller said:
Cheers for the info, I'm planning on a winter restoration, looking at all possibilities.
What tyre size would you say this car has?

http://www.ruediger-wicke.de/Fotos/Race ... /b1879.jpg

Cheers
Andy
Click to expand...

If this is the same car my guess would be 225 or 245 wide tyres, hard to tell from the angle. To get a proper comparison you would need to know the wheel offsets aswell.

image_04.jpg


Good luck going wider, very few have managed it and there's a reason :wink:
 
OK well that may be a sign then.
I don't ant to go very wide, but I had a Bimmer E30 323i with 205 tyres and I thought it looked pretty good.

I just want to get all ideas together before I actually go ahead and get the car on the driveway and dismantle it!
Cheers
Andy
 
cfcrotweiller said:
OK well that may be a sign then.
I don't ant to go very wide, but I had a Bimmer E30 323i with 205 tyres and I thought it looked pretty good.

I just want to get all ideas together before I actually go ahead and get the car on the driveway and dismantle it!
Cheers
Andy
Click to expand...

I can only speak from experience, but going wider is an enormous task to do well and right. I'm not saying don't do it, as I'd love to see more customised/modified P6's, but I spent over a year just messing about with mine :roll:

100_1256.jpg


That's mine, not a 3500 but a 2000, though I think that has little relevance now :LOL:

Wheels are custom to fit 8" wide, with 225/50/15 tyres, and the arches have been pushed out 1" to clear.

It's not for show either, I need the extra rubber on the back to keep it in check :wink:
 
Getting both the correct rolling diameter ie the diameter at the edge of the tyre tread, rather than the wheel diameter, and getting the tyres to fit inside the rear D post is the difficult trick. The car you've linked to looks as if it has 18" wheels instead of the standard 14" and the tyres are an extremely low profile. So perhaps they could be 225/35 X 18, in which case the overall diameter is actually 5% smaller than standard. That's enough to give you quite a bit of leeway at the D post, but against that you will have to put up with the car being even more under-geared than it was before!

Chris
 
Not to mention the ride will be ruined and the handling a mixed grill!
Don't go down the path of big diameter wheels with uber low profile tyres.
Old style suspension systems were never designed to work with such a beast...I had two Alfas that I experimented with using such wheel/tyre packages...in both instances the sum total effect was to ruin the car!
Reminds me of the young/dumb/full of cum brigade who drop slam old Benzes with low profile wheels and tyres...the rear camber angles are crazy...and in 6 months you see the car beached at the side of the road...the suspension having finally collapsed!
I think the biggest combo with out too much downside is the 16" Jeep Cherokee wheels....even then I'm sure some will disagree.
 
I'm definitely not going to larger rims. 15" and nice wide tyre walls is what I like. Proper old school.
I'm purely looking at wider tyres, with the possibility of flared arches. I think when looking at the car from the front/rear, it looks too tall and needs to be pushed out sideways a bit more. Give it a more grounded look and also hopefully look the part. This is all hypothetical as I haven't started the restoration yet.
I think I like something along the lines of 205 55 R15, or even R14.
 
cfcrotweiller said:
I found this ad here in Portugal, and the tyres on this one seem to be 225 (hard to read the markings on one of the pics).
I think 205 is a nice size, gives the car more grip, they don't look skinny and I like the idea of deep wheel rims.
http://vilafrancadexira.olx.pt/rover-35 ... -447267015
Click to expand...

You'd really need to get the wheel size in addition to the tyre size to make an accurate comparison on that Portugese P6, I reckon it's cheating by having the rim sit slightly more inboard over the De Dion elbow's. The outer panels look to have the correct profile going by the reflections (I have a small computer screen so can't view them properly), so I'd take a wild guess and say the rims are most likely 7" wide.

cfcrotweiller said:
I'm definitely not going to larger rims. 15" and nice wide tyre walls is what I like. Proper old school.
I'm purely looking at wider tyres, with the possibility of flared arches. I think when looking at the car from the front/rear, it looks too tall and needs to be pushed out sideways a bit more. Give it a more grounded look and also hopefully look the part. This is all hypothetical as I haven't started the restoration yet.
I think I like something along the lines of 205 55 R15, or even R14.
Click to expand...

Not put off the flared arches yet then :LOL:

With just open arches (I'm yet to see a proper rounded rear open arch) I reckon you'd get a good match of front/rear wheel and tyre to arch clearance. If you were to flare the arches, I trust you'd be doing both front AND rear, and if so, even 205's on deep offset rims would most likely look like bicycle tyres, and you'd be going into the great unknown as to clearance on suspension travel and steering lock :)
 
OK, lets say there is still room for more research then. I'm pretty hot at mechanics but to be honest anything suspension related and I'm def in unknown territory.

Whats the differnece between open arches and flared arches?
 
cfcrotweiller said:
I think when looking at the car from the front/rear, it looks too tall and needs to be pushed out sideways
Click to expand...

Car is what you would call "narrow gutted"...and i agree...a few more inches width wise from the factory would be magic
 
Reminds me of the young/dumb/full of cum brigade who drop slam old Benzes with low profile wheels and tyres..

May I borrow this quote ?
 
cfcrotweiller said:
OK, lets say there is still room for more research then. I'm pretty hot at mechanics but to be honest anything suspension related and I'm def in unknown territory.

Whats the differnece between open arches and flared arches?
Click to expand...

The front wheelarches are open, the complete wheel and tyre is visible with a gap around, flared is flared 8)

Anyone can stick flared arches on, just go and buy a set of Escort bubble arches similar to the Rover racer and bond them on the sides! The problems start on the rear inner arch where the door is, and the rear door itself. After that, finding suitable wide/offset wheels to fill out the arches could be a problem.

Nothing impossible, not like it hasn't been done before!
 
sowen said:
cfcrotweiller said:
OK, lets say there is still room for more research then. I'm pretty hot at mechanics but to be honest anything suspension related and I'm def in unknown territory.

Whats the differnece between open arches and flared arches?
Click to expand...

The front wheelarches are open, the complete wheel and tyre is visible with a gap around, flared is flared 8)

Anyone can stick flared arches on, just go and buy a set of Escort bubble arches similar to the Rover racer and bond them on the sides! The problems start on the rear inner arch where the door is, and the rear door itself. After that, finding suitable wide/offset wheels to fill out the arches could be a problem.

Nothing impossible, not like it hasn't been done before!
Click to expand...


Cheers, yes I have heard about the probs with the rear arches. I'm not looking to stick on wheel arches, I'm looking to get the side panels off and completely reshape them (with a spare set incase all goes pear shape). But yes the rear door arch seems to be a common problem. Hopefully once the panels are off and I can visually see the problems it will make more sense (and I may just quit while ahead and just repaint)!
 
cfcrotweiller said:
sowen said:
cfcrotweiller said:
OK, lets say there is still room for more research then. I'm pretty hot at mechanics but to be honest anything suspension related and I'm def in unknown territory.

Whats the differnece between open arches and flared arches?
Click to expand...

The front wheelarches are open, the complete wheel and tyre is visible with a gap around, flared is flared 8)

Anyone can stick flared arches on, just go and buy a set of Escort bubble arches similar to the Rover racer and bond them on the sides! The problems start on the rear inner arch where the door is, and the rear door itself. After that, finding suitable wide/offset wheels to fill out the arches could be a problem.

Nothing impossible, not like it hasn't been done before!
Click to expand...


Cheers, yes I have heard about the probs with the rear arches. I'm not looking to stick on wheel arches, I'm looking to get the side panels off and completely reshape them (with a spare set incase all goes pear shape). But yes the rear door arch seems to be a common problem. Hopefully once the panels are off and I can visually see the problems it will make more sense (and I may just quit while ahead and just repaint)!
Click to expand...



Plus I want to do both. I want to open the rear arch to expose the wheel and I want to flare both front and rear. When I start the resto project I will post a topic here of all the work carried out, so it will probably be a 'learn as you go' project (in terms of panel changes anyway).
 
cfcrotweiller said:
cfcrotweiller said:
Cheers, yes I have heard about the probs with the rear arches. I'm not looking to stick on wheel arches, I'm looking to get the side panels off and completely reshape them (with a spare set incase all goes pear shape). But yes the rear door arch seems to be a common problem. Hopefully once the panels are off and I can visually see the problems it will make more sense (and I may just quit while ahead and just repaint)!
Click to expand...



Plus I want to do both. I want to open the rear arch to expose the wheel and I want to flare both front and rear. When I start the resto project I will post a topic here of all the work carried out, so it will probably be a 'learn as you go' project (in terms of panel changes anyway).
Click to expand...

You don't need to take any panels off the car to see the problem, just open the rear doors and look where the wheels go :wink:

The outer panels wouldn't be an issue, if I'm assuming right you just want a bigger more pronounced flared lip around the wheel, time consuming but relatively easy to do. The hard part is the inner arch (d-post) and the door frame, and putting the door seal back in to seal up. I've had my P6 on the road for a little over two years and I still haven't finished the rear door seals!

Have you any idea what wheels you'd be using to fill out the gap? They sit a long way in as standard, so to fill out even the mildest of arches they would need to sit a long way out. You'll need to pay very close attention to how the suspension operates in all situations so that the wheels clear underneath while going round corners laden. So far on mine I've not noticed any rubbing on the rear, though the front wheels do sit quite tight to the arch lip and the tread has touched the inner lip a few times in the past.

Lots of people have said they want to do it, and that's as far as they've ever got :|
 
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