1966 1500 Tire options (Temporary)

[MeganK]

New to the forum I bought a 1966 1500 wide side and was excited to learn it luckily had the rare buddy seat option..

It will be a while until it gets back on the road but I need to put back tires on it that actually hold air... I don't know what the direction will be on restoration at this point and I don't necessarily want to invest in tires just to have them sit for months.

My idea was to go to one of the many used tire shops in Vegas and I can get a tire that I can at least roll the truck around on... $40 mounted. Then in a few months if I want to change out rims and tires I am not limited in my choices.

3 of the 4 tires are 245/75/16 and one of the rear tires is 225/75/16...2 are LT, 2 are A/T... but again this is purely very temporary...

I assume the 245 is what I want on the back to match the front... my question is really about what kind of load range I need to find based on the vehicle weight....

Any insight would be appreciated

[FetchMeAPepsi]

They're all 16's, so you can just slap another 16 on there and be fine. It's best to keep them all the same size with the other numbers but unless you're driving it every day you won't really care or notice a small size difference temporarily.

Congrats on having 16's. The original wheels were 15's (usually) and they sure look funny on our trucks. Too much empty room under the fenders.
Welcome to the forum too!

[LordNatedawg]

You probably want to stick with the 245s. I have those on my 1966 1500 as well. They're a fairly common size used on the late 90s to early 00s GM trucks. Easy to get, and fill the fenders nicely.

As for load range, that entirely depends on what you plan on using the truck for. Are you gonna use it as a grocery getter? A weekend cruiser? Using it as a truck? If these are just scrap tires just for rolling around, get whatever you can get.

If you plan to treat it like the 3/4 ton it is, go with LT tires. If it's just gonna be a cruiser and occasional truck usage, then P tires are perfectly fine. I personally plan to use LT tires on mine simply because my truck is gonna be used and abused, just as GMC intended.

I use P tires on my 2012 GMC 1/2ton (standard load/4-ply) and that truck sees some towing and hauling, but is mostly a daily driver. Both the 2012 and 1966 weigh roughly the same, and have similar GVW ratings. So tire rating entirely depends on planned usage.

[BobBray]

My '67 2500 originally had 16" tube-type tires. Previous owner replaced them with 16.5" tubeless at some point with junkyard wheels off a large Chevy van. Fit but had the wrong offset. I got a set of 16" with more negative offset specifically to run LT245/75R16 tires. Looks better, tires are easy to find.