Several people gave me good advice in my quest for tires, the hunt for which
was driven by my desire to try to solve a ferocious wheelhop problem that I
attributed in part to flatspotting. I did find some tires - and I learned
more about my Morgan in the process.
Turns out that a good job of tire balancing on my old rubber would probably
have done it. I could have sworn that wasn't it since, no matter where I
rotated the tires, the dreaded shake always appeared at the left front
wheel. Anyway, the new tires, properly balanced, have completely eliminated
the problem. Smooth as glass now, at any speed (in Morgan-relative terms, of
course). Greg Solow was trying to tell me that all along.
Incidentally, I became a convert some months ago to Greg's advice to shun
the one-shot oiler. That gave me a chance to scour the underside of its
several year's accumulation of crud and now it's never been cleaner. When I
cleaned, though, I never got around to the aluminum wheels. Mounting the new
tires drove me finally to look at the inside of the wheels - and clean them
of gobs of hardened grease collected for years. That grease alone probably
had a part to play in the balance problem.
The new tires feel great. The smaller contact patch of the new 185x15's
(versus the old ER78's) makes low speed maneuvers possible again without
needing two strong arms on the steering wheel. And now I have a little more
breathing room between the tire and the exhaust pipe.
Werner Pels
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