"Inherited" my father-in-law's old truck. He bought himself a new one and we got a great deal as long as we let him borrow it to haul firewood. We bug him because this truck was a real work truck and now his new truck is too nice to get dirty. :)
Anyway, it's a 90 Chevy 1/2 ton 4x4 regular cab with a 350/5spd. Stock tires (according to the door sticker) would have been 225/75-16 at
45psi. On there right now are LT245/75-16's. According to the sidewall I can go up to 60 psi for max loading.Now, my dilemna (other than not being able to spell dilemna) is what tire pressure should I be running? Half the time it's carrying freezers to the dump and helping people move, the other half the time it's going to be a second vehicle for the winter. (Winnipeg - lots of snow and -40.)
My father-in-law was running about 40 psi, but I've dropped it to 35 because it looks like the tires are wearing in the center (overinflation.)
So, when loaded I think 45-50psi is probably appropriate, but when Christmas shopping I'm thinking I could maybe even go as low as 25 psi for more traction on snowy/icy roads? I know no one can tell me exactly without seeing the truck, but looking for suggestions as to what a good pressure would be for an unloaded pickup. I know I can't ask GM or a tire company, because they'll all just tell me to run what the sticker says... and I'm not buying new tires to match the sticker. (the cool thing is I just picked up a shop manual on ebay and you can recalibrate the speedo to work with these size tires....) (I like the sticker on my Trans Am - 30 psi under normal conditions,
38psi under sustained (>100mph) driving.)(and this thing is a REAL truck. No carpet, just rubber flooring. No A/C. Just a motor, a stick shift and a big hitch - perfect for towing my race car next year. The thing even has an oil cooler...)
So, anyone have suggestions as to what psi range I should be playing with? (I'm planning to keep dropping it until I feel it getting "squishy" and going about 5psi higher than that for the lowest to run.)
Ray