Bias Ply Tires: Stripes and Date Codes

[bajajoaquin]

So when I was pulling my hubcap out of my trunk, I decided to look under my spare tire cover in the trunk. It's a bias ply white wall tire. I know the factory original white walls weren't a single stripe. This one is three stripes, little between two bigs. What was the original pattern?

Also, are there date codes on old bias ply tires? Do they have just a date, or is there a code to be deciphered? I don't really want to drive on this tire (if I need it), but I'm curious to know how old it is, and if it is OE.

I'll snap a pic next time I'm down there.

 

[detmatt]

I have my original spare as well and its a triple stripe. I don't know if they had date codes on them back then but mine does still have a mark on it from the factory. I'll see if I can come up with a pic.

 

[Big_John]

There is a date code on my original 70 spare.

 

[bajajoaquin]

I didn't pull it out to look at the date code, but here's a pic of the stripe pattern. I think this is the original pattern (Cadillacs were narrow-wide-narrow, I think). A quick Google search showed that "Power Cushion" was a Goodyear tire.

 

[detmatt]

Here's mine.

 

[bajajoaquin]

By pure coincidence, there's a thread up on the Imperial group about original tires. Someone posted up some original Goodyear catalog info, and confirmed that these are the original fitment tires. I still haven't pulled it to see if there's a date code, though.

It's interesting that the spares got white-walls, too. No old-school version of space-saver spares here!

 

[detmatt]

There's no lack of real estate in that trunk and I'm not sure a space saver would suffice on a nearly 5,000 lb car. I could be wrong on that but I used my spare a little over a year ago and I was glad it was there and full size!

 

[bajajoaquin]

I meant more that they didn't cheap out and put on a blackwall, but it didn't really come out right.

How did you car drive with one bias and one radial? I had a trailer tire go flat, and the only spare I had was a bias. One bias with three radials was scary. The trailer was whipping around all over the place.

 

[detmatt]

It seemed fine but I also took it way easy on it mainly because I didn't want to fluck up my original spare.

 

[Big_John]

Mine. I figured out the date code and I'm pretty sure it's an original to my 70 300. This is a belted Goodyear Polyglas tire.