15" Blackwall tire recomondations.

[camerjeff]

I am looking for a decent performance blackwall type tire to fit my 15X6" wheels for my 71 Catalina Enforcer. I know my options will be limited in the 235R70 size that originally came on the car. Non of my brands of tire I usually buy carry that size anymore. And I do not have any experience with the Asian brands that do seem to carry that size. Any input welcome.

This is a mostly stock resto so I plan on keeping it as close as possible to original looking. Thanks

[SD455DJ]

Jeff, I've had good luck with Mastercraft on my daily drivers (2014 Chevy Express 2500 van and 2008 Nissan Altima). They were relatively inexpensive and both sets are approaching 50k miles and still have decent tread. I'm confident I'll get 60k out of them. They are blackwalls in the 235/75-15 size. I'll likely be putting these on my '71 Bonneville ae well, either the Stratus AS or HT's.

On Summit Racing they have Uniroyal, Cooper, Yokohama, BFG, General, & even Coker in that size from $110 to $170 range.

Dennis

[camerjeff]

Sorry Dennis I missed your recommendation before I opted for the tires I bought today, seeing that I bought the set of BF Goodrich Radials today (mounted black wall out) as the car will probably not be driven more than 1000 miles a year ( unless I retire and start joining the Bandit runs ) the tires will probably age out before they wear out. The car came with some 1970's vintage Michelin 70 series radials on it. So I was looking for a 70 series tire to replace them.

Thanks for the recommendation, sorry I missed it.

[SD455DJ]

Camerjeff’s thread got me wondering about this, so I went down the proverbial rabbit hole yesterday to look at original tire sizes offered on the 71 B-body and found the original size for the base Catalina’s is the G78-15 blackwall, while the Bonneville and Grandville got H78-15 blackwalls. The optional tires for the Catalina was the H78-15 and J78-15, while the Bonneville & Grandville was just the J78-15 (both blackwall & whitewall). L78-15 was optional only on the wagons for all B-models…not sure what the wagons base tire size were.

Comparing the original bias ply tires heights to today’s available tires (all radial) I got the following:
G78-15 at 27.7” compares to 225/70R-15 at 27.4” or 235/70R-15 at 27.9”.
H78-15 at 28.4” compares to 225/75R-15 at 28.3”.
J78-15 at 28.7” compares to 235/75R-15 at 28.9”.
L78-15 at 29.3” compares to 255/70R-15 at 29.1” or 265/70-15 at 29.8”.

My Bonneville came with the optional up-size J78-15 (28.7”) dual stripe whitewalls so the 235/75R-15 (28.9”) radials would be closest. The closest 70 series tire would be the 255/70R-15 at 29.1” (BFG Radial TA, Cooper Cobra, Mastercraft Avenger, or General Grabber HTS60), but recommend at least a 6.5” wide wheel. 15x6 is the std. B-body wheel size.

Dennis

[camerjeff]

Interesting info Dennis, the original 15X6" wheels is what kept me away from a wider 60 series profile tire, I had measured the Michelin Radials on the car when I bought it (with 1975 date codes on them) and they where 28 1/4" tall. As the car was taken out of service by the Police department about 1978 I assume that the PD put the Radials on it, but I could be wrong on that.

Other than the White letters on the BF goodrich radial TA's they have about the look I was going for, I probably could have saved a few $'s with the Cooper's or Mastercraft tires, but I wanted to get the 12 year old tires off the car. And the BFG's were available at my local tire dealer.