At 6:11 PM -0700 9/4/97, David Raistrick wrote:

>You folks running [Yokohama Y] 370's (or similiar load D tires) on a
>Baywindow >Westy (non-westy's too..) What inflation pressures have you
>found success with?

I LOVE the Yoko Y370s I had on our 1976 Westy (Mango Camper).  Thousands
and thousands of miles of unpaved road / off-road driving and not a single
flat.  Strong sidewalls make it good for cornering and in crosswinds, and
has sufficiently aggressive tread to bite on loose / slippery surfaces, yet
fairly quiet on pavement.

The pressure I run depends on road surface and condition.  For highway
cruising we ran about 40 - 45 lbs, lower in bad wet or snow.  Off pavement
we generally knocked it down to 30 lbs or so, and below 20 for very loose
(and slow) surfaces.

There are two schools of thought for travel on unpaved surfaces covered in
sharp fragments (like shale chip road beds or blasted & bulldozed road
cuts).  One is to air down so that the tire will give and bend around a
sharp object; the other is to put the pressure up so that sharp things are
shot away from the tire.  For example, on the Dempster Highway to Inuvik,
which is paved largely in shale fragments the size and shape of arrowheads,
I boosted the pressure to the maximum rating for the tires: 65 lbs.  No
flats.

Sometimes I wonder if the steel wheel itself is (a) designed for, and (b)
can safely handle, tire pressures that high.  The wheels were built with
the expectation that Michelin XZXs (40 lbs max?) would be mounted on them.
Thoughts?

Tobin
1976 Westy ex-owner (now owned by Seattle listmember Peter Small)
1997 son Russell (wanna westy!  wahhh!)

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Tobin T. Copley,MA   Research Associate                  tobin.copley@ubc.ca
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