Re: Non-Standard Tyre sizes

[Robert Ducker <bducker@domain.elided>]

At 03:47 PM 1/4/98 -0500, Mike Wattam wrote:
>The suspension geometry, particularly at the back needs sorting out.  This
>type of tyre must continually run perpendicular to the road to be
>predictable and wear reasonably well, otherwise you get lots of bump-steer
>effects from excessive toe-in/out.  Plus the variation in footprint as the
>suspension goes up and down can lead to sudden and unpredictable
>break-away.
>
>Ideally the back suspension at least should have a complete redesign to
>minimise camber variations and toe-in variation.

  I've done some racing in years past and, actually, the Stag rear geometry
doesn't look all that terribly bad to me, for any tire that will fit
(almost) the wheelwell.
  It appears to have some nice camber gain and I would think the bump steer
thing should also be pretty much independant of tread width, if tire offset
is kept reasonable.
  But, if this is the usual experience owners have had with wider tires,
then I guess I'll have to defer to experience on this one (my tires are
185-70), although I'd still be somewhat suspect of wheel offset problems,
or excessive loading of old rubber parts first.
  And speaking of old rubber parts, the upper strut mounts on both my Stags
are in poor shape. Does anyone have any experience with replacing the
rubber/bushing mounts with spherical bearings? Seems like a logical upgrade
that may have been available at one time...