Swapped rim on my XZLs

[Croatan_Kid]

It looks so much better with the wider rims and less backspacing! Good thing is 4.25" BS is not enough to put the tire in the fender....much. Anyway, here ya go!

 

[m4A1]

What size tires do you have on? Did you lift it? It looks good.

 

[Croatan_Kid]

They're 11.00R-16 Michelin XZLs, standard stuff on a USMC LAV-25. Very nice, long lasting tires.

It has roughly 4 inches of lift in the front and a 3 inch block in the rear. I'm going to lift the front another inch sometime soon so it'll sit level again. The springs settled and it's still nose down a little, most people don't notice it, but it drives me crazy!


Thanks! It looks a lot better with that little bit of extra track width. Makes it look "squattier" and a little meaner.

 

[truck0590]

Where does one buy 11.00r-16s? Can they be bought new or all used military pulls? I was looking at this for my truck and Scrambler. Is there a place that shows all the tread differences in the Michelin tires? It looks like yours has more side wall tread then the XLs which would be better for the rocks.

Truck

 

[Croatan_Kid]

A good place to look is the "Classifieds" section of this here website. AJMBlazer sent me a link to some that were for sale on here. I talked to the guy, we made an agreement, and I took a ride to go get them. Just so happened that the guy I got mine from had bought 4 sets and they were all brand new with the NSN stickers still on them

There's not really a "place" you can buy them because they are under military contract at the moment, but like I said, you can find them from time to time. As you noticed, they do have more sidewall tread than the XLs and actually to begin with I was looking for XLs because they're an awesome looking tire!

Here's a pretty nice little write up about one guy's experiences with Michelin tires and his Power Wagon, has good pictures and stuff.

http://www.garbee.net/~cabell/photos5.htm

 

[truck0590]

Thanks for the info, I'll keep my eye out, not in a big hurry...how much do these things typically run?

Truck

 

[1stgear]

Great looking truck. Your front tag made me laugh!

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Nice man. What size rims? 16x7 or 16x8?


The 11.00R16 is going the way of the dodo as it was replaced in the military system by the 325/85R16 size. Same 38" height but about 2" wider. The ones we are seeing on the market now are all the surplused out or remaining over run stock tires. They used to be a steal but the price has gone up as their availability has decreased. They're still the best tire around for what they can do and a great steal if you get a set under $800.

 

[Croatan_Kid]

I've almost forgotten about the front tag, I used to laugh about it a lot. From time to time I notice people driving by me laughing and elbowing the passenger and pointing and me...all the while I'm wondering what they're doing, then I just laugh and go "Oh yeah!", lol. Oh and the guards on base usually get a kick out of it too


AJM, they're 16x8 ProComp Rock Crawlers. It really wasn't too bad to mount them, the sidewall is a little more flexible than I previously thought. However, I did have to have a friend or two help me pick them up on to the tire machine and the balancer. Oh....that poor, poor tire balancer

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Yeah, my tire guys love me.

I bring them in interesting stuff but it's usually somewhat difficult for them to do.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

How's the turning radius? Theoretically those should move the sidewall a little further away from the drag link and help gain back some of the right hand turn.

 

[Croatan_Kid]

Oh you didn't see my post earlier? Heh, look!

Actually, I never had any problems with the left tire hitting the drag link anyway. However, I wanted to make sure it never did, lol. Crossover is so awesome!

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Cough...assbag...cough...

Still got the stock steering shaft?
Did you replace the whole steering box or just put in a 2wd sector shaft?

 

[Croatan_Kid]

Just swapped the sector shaft. Yeah, I still have the stock steering shaft and actually I got an XJ shaft, but it has the through-bolt, pinch splines at both ends and not a bolt on type deal like the top of my shaft. We couldn't take the two and make one because the two sides I needed to match together were both male. What year XJ is yours from?

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Late 80's or so. From what I can tell needs to be a mid/late 80's to mid 90's XJ. The big thread about it over on CK5 has the year range in it.