Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Plus 4 Replacement Tyres

Having had many grounding episodes with my car, including every time I get the car in and out of the garage, I finally decided to fit 195/65 15 replacements having had positive feedback on this forum.
Although only providing an extra 1 cm of ground clearance it really has made a difference and driving into my garage for the first time without the horrible grinding noise as the gearbox mounting bolts remove yet another bit of the garage floor was pure luxury.
Reason for the post is for anyone who is thinking of doing this and may be concerned about the spare wheel not fitting properly as the wheel diameter is 2cm larger.
I am very pleased to say that the wheel fits in without any problem, I think the hole in the rear panel is a standard size irrespective of what wheels and tyres are fitted as standard, the cyclops brake light still fits and the Morgan supplied spare wheel cover still fits, actually it's a better fit now than on the smaller original tyre.
Not tried it out on the infamous French village speed bumps yet as that will have to wait until next year but looking good so far.
Thank you to everyone who helped me make the decision to change.

Well done Andrew.

Well done Possum. I shall do the same when mine wear out. Put on another 3,000 mls in the last two weeks to Tuscany and back so it wont be long! Let me know when you're heading in my direction again.
P

Andrew

I too have problems grounding the gearbox cross-member of my +8 on the lip of my garage so I can sympathise with your predicament.

You have certainly solved one issue with the higher profile tyres but just a couple of check points which you have probably already considered:

1 Check that the higher profile tyre does not found the wing on full lock "inwards" on both sides. This could lead to an MoT fail.

2 The difference in diameter I make 19mm , or 3.1% , this means that your speedo is now going to reading approx. 3% SLOW. I would take the car out on a straight piece of road with no buildings nearby, run it at a constant speed and compare the speedo reading with a GPS. You then make marks on the speedo where the true speed is for the crucial limits (30,40,50,60,70) . It is then up to you to remember this.

Apologies if I am trying to teach grandmother to suck eggs.

A definite improvement in ground clearance. A worthwhile change.

Andy
Thanks for the advice, and certainly justified after some of my mechanical exploits.
The tyres are the same width as standard so whilst the height is different it's not significant enough to cause any issues with contacting the wing, or anything else, on full lock.
My speedometer setting isn't standard, whatever that may be, as it's now on version 3 of the software after being reset at the factory. ( It used to under read the speed which was not only illegal but potentially licence threatening). I checked the speed against gps before changing the tyres and it over stated the speed by 8% so the change in rolling diameter will improve the accuracy of my speedo, but definitely worth checking this for anyone thinking of making the change.

P
Hope you enjoyed Tuscany.
Who knows with the new tyres I might be able to make it over that 'little' speed bump at the start of your drive without my wife getting out of the car!

Hi Andrew could you get these size tyres fitted at the factory during the build?

Malcolm
Not sure whether you can but definitely worth asking. To be honest I never even considered the ground clearance as this is my third Morgan and I never had any problems with the ground clearance on the first two, including trips to France and using the same garage etc. If I had known or thought about it I would have considered different wheels as the alloys and larger, 16", wires both give you more clearance.
Morgan quote the same clearance for all trads, obviously not correct, and the first I knew my car was different was driving it back from the dealer on familiar roads and crashing into speeds humps that had previously posed no problems and then almost not getting it into the garage.

Hi Andrew, my after speedo readings taken against GPS reading were more accurate than the lower profile tyres. I did inform my insurance company, apart from noting the change there was no increase in premium.
A downside is that I found it more difficult to get my hand over the front tyre in order to grease the top of the suspension.