Aircooled VW South Africa

Hi guys, I have been stressing a little bit about a spare tyre for Sibongile, I have a set of four tyres and rims that I had on previously, but these are not usable as spare tyres I can take with me as there is no space in the car.

The first questions is where do you guys have your spare tyres ? If in the car, where in the car ? Is it the South African builds that seem not to have space ? I have tried fitting a normal tyre in the front...no go...without the front not being usable I do not know where else...I have entertained the idea of using a biscuit type tyre, but I am not able to find a 17" one that will work with my current setup.

Any ideas that can be shared...for a spare tyre and location...

I have used a 15 smart car tyre on a steel rim, this works well even if your normal road tyres are 17's

Herman

With the location of the beetle fuel tank in the replicas, it is difficult to have the spare in the correct position. The proper Porsche fuel tank is located much further back.
Alternatively the spare wheel is placed in the space right in front where the battery is located. I don't know if you would be able to fit any tyre in there if the battery is still located there, much less a 17". But if you can put a cover over the battery itself you can try mounting a small spare in the nose, maybe a smaller buscuit type.

What a lot of people do is to leave out the spare wheel and carry a can or two of Tyre-Weld (I think that's the name) as part of their spares.

On my car I plan to move the battery to the storage space behind the back seat so I have enough space in the nose of the car to keep a full size spare tyre. But I'm going with 4.5 x 15" wheels.

Good luck

Still got this one available

http://www.aircooledvwsa.co.za/viewtopi ... 72&t=30966

Hey bud,
not sure if you run with or without tubes, but this is my solution.
I have tubeless tyres and learnt to use this on my motorbikes. I carry a kit like this, plus a tin of compressed air. This is capable of repairing most punctures on the side of the road, and you have enough air "bombs" to re-inflate the tyre, as well as a replacement tin of compressed air, which will get you rolling again, and if this doesn't seal the hole, at least you can then get to a garage where they can evaluate if it's sufficiently sealed or not.
I've had to use these 3 times on my bikes over a period of 8 years, never had to replace the tyre or redo the repair.

Cheers

Alan

retrovan wrote:I have used a 15 smart car tyre on a steel rim, this works well even if your normal road tyres are 17's

Herman

Don't you need the same size radius wheel(tyre and rim) on the rear for the gearbox?

Donovan D wrote:

retrovan wrote:I have used a 15 smart car tyre on a steel rim, this works well even if your normal road tyres are 17's

Herman

Don't you need the same size radius wheel(tyre and rim) on the rear for the gearbox?

All you need is to make sure that the rolling diameter is more or less the same (I wouldn't go with more than a 5% difference, I am in no way an expert, this is just my opinion)
If you are running a 205/40/17 (595.8mm diameter) then this is how the smart car tires compare:
145/65/15 (569.5mm diameter) has a 4.4% smaller diameter.
155/60/15 (567mm diameter) has a 4.8% smaller diameter.
175/55/15 (573.5mm diameter) has a 3.7% smaller diameter.
So the 175/55/15 would be closest to the 205/40/17 but then it's also the widest one of the three..

Donovan D wrote:

retrovan wrote:I have used a 15 smart car tyre on a steel rim, this works well even if your normal road tyres are 17's

Herman

Don't you need the same size radius wheel(tyre and rim) on the rear for the gearbox?

We are talking of a spare wheel, to be used only to get you to the next repair shop, yes for all correctness, you must run the same diameters on an axle, but the diff will sort out any differences for the shorter run at easy speed.

Herman

Meant diameter...

Was just asking because sdudum said he was running 17".
I have different size tyres front and back so just wanted to know about the diameter and how that works when running a 15" spare.

Drop the spare wheel base a couple of inches, then re-glass the base. This was my solution prior to the nose job. Original Porsche's spare wheel base as seen in the pick.