[Ed Snyder]

The tires would have rubbed on the rear fender lips on the one ton Suburban if Dad hadn't had Darryl Starbird radius the openings to match the front fender openings. He had ordered it originally with the biggest wheels and tires available fromm the factory, 8.00x17.5. When towing the 24' Avion trailer, however, he experienced many blowouts. So when the 12x16.5 tires became available (about 1969 I think) he got rid of the originals. For some reason, the Avion (Airstream clone) only had a single axle even though it weighed about 5000 pounds. So we had lots of blowouts with those tires too. Don't remember the size, 7.00x15 maybe. So around the same time Dad installed the 12x16.5 tires on the 9.75x16.5 wheels on the truck, he modified the trailer to fit 10x16.5 tires on 8.25x16.5 wheels. That eliminated the blowouts on both truck and trailer.

I had a 1963 GMC Suburban in 1971 that I installed 10x16.5 tires and 8.25x16.5 wheels on. The fronts fit fine, but I had to use a crescent wrench to bend up the inner lips on the rear wheel openings to clear the tires. Next I bought a new half ton 4x4 pickup in 1972 and installed 12x16.5 tires and 9.75x16.5 wheels on it. All four fit with no clearance problems.