Hi there, I have a '81 caddy with a 1.9 N/A diesel. I live down 8 miles on a knarly dirt road in northern California. I was wondering if there are any of you who have experimented with light truck tires on your rigs? I have 14" teardrop jetta wheels and 185/60/r14 street tires on now and wanted to go with taller more aggressive tires. I am not apposed to cutting some body work to make this happen. I would like more ground clearance and better mud/dirt traction. I have also considered snow tires, or even a small lift to fit tires. 195/75 seems to be the smallest light truck tire out there. Any one got any good ideas or experience in these matters?
I looked into this for a while, since I found myself driving my rabbit down logging roads a whole lot last winter.
if you want to hack up the body, you don`t have to do anything special, just get some 14" swampers and go for it.
I would suggest lifting the car though, this will put a little more wear on your CV joints but would leave everything else untouched. You can put spacers under the strut towers and get 2-3 inches of lift. The tires are here:
28X8.50-14LT SAM-06 31 4 4 20/32 7.0 27.4 9.00 758 14x6.5 30 1310
Super swamper TSL bias ply for a 14" rim. 27.4" actual diameter is not too bad. This is the smallest swamper I was able to find.
There was a VW golf country made in 1991. It was a normal golf but had AWD and a complete sub frame that bolted in place of all motor mounts, body mounts, etc giving the car a few inches of lift and more stiffness for the flex, etc of driving through rutted roads.
Here we go, 2" lift kit includes front & rear spacers.
http://oldskoolvw.com/
Does anyone have any pictures of what a caddy looks like with a lift? That link was great! Exactly what I was looking for, the chopped down and skidplatted oil pan looks like a good idea for my caddy and my Suzuki samurai with a VW 1.6 TD...I just had to put a little more lift on the Sami to keep from bashing the oil pan with the axle.
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