Tire/wheel sizes

[sodly]

Can anyone tell me if a 16.9x38 tire fits on the same wheel as a 15.5x38 tire? For instance, if a JD 4020 had a 16.9x38 tire would you have to switch rims to get a 15.5x38 tire on it (properly)? Or do 16.9 and 15.5s generally fit the same wheel? Thanks.

 

[NIndianaDan]

Just covered this with a local tire company. 15.5"s and 16.9"s will both fit on 14" rims.

 

[MPK]

Yes, they both fit on 38 inch rims.

 

[Anonymous-0]

As others say they will fit ,but I did the exact same thing on an Farmall 656 and it raised the rear end up about 4 in.and made it a little hard to get on for this old guy. That 1st step was a killer.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Every tractor tire maker has a list of preferred rim widths for their tires. For Goodyear it was in the Goodyear Farm Tire Handbook that could be downloaded from the internet. I don't know if it still can. Google would show it if its available. Otherwise I've seen that preferred rim width for Continental, Titan, and Firestone, in print at shows.

Generally there's the width rim the tire was designed for and then an acceptable narrower rim, in this range usually 1 inch narrower than the preferred rim.

But large tires have been squeezed into narrow rims and small tires have been expanded into wider rims and mostly they have worked, but the fat tires on the narrow rim are very hard to remove when they get old and hard and the small tires on a wide rim are hard to bead and hard to keep on the rim.

Gerald J.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Using the old size markings, you can generally go one inch wider or narrower than the rim width. ie, a 15.5 tire is a 14 inch, fits on a 13, 14, or 15 inch rim.