Tyres on the Grenadier

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Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

I think the old VN Commodores had a badge saying "Radially Tuned Suspension" which my mate thought just meant they ran radial tyres?

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That was a badge on a few Holden models well before the Dunny Dore appeared.

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Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

I think the old VN Commodores had a badge saying "Radially Tuned Suspension" which my mate thought just meant they ran radial tyres?

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Originally Posted by scarry

That was a badge on a few Holden models well before the Dunny Dore appeared.

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That was a marketing thing when Holden's chief chassis engineer arrived from Opel (Peter Hannenberger?) instead of Detroit and couldn't believe how badly they drove, so went about re-jigging springs, bars, dampers and geometry on the entire range.
They went from generally understeering, rolly pigs to cars that pointed and drove quite nicely for the time

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Originally Posted by rick130

That was a marketing thing when Holden's chief chassis engineer came from Opel (Peter Hannenberger?) instead of Detroit and couldn't believe how badly they drive, so went about re-jigging springs, bars, dampers and geometry on the entire range.
They went from generally understeering, rolly pigs to cars that pointed and drove quite nicely for the time

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Holden also went to coils in the rear around HQ,'71,for wagons and sedans which helped with handling as well.Quite a few years before RTS arrived.In fact the OEM tyre on the HQ was cross ply, from memory.Definitely for the commercial range.
Falcon went to rear coils,about XE,'82, the wagons still had leaf springs for ages after that.

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Originally Posted by scarry

Correct,as said, an on road vehicle, other manufacturers do it as well, its not something new.

Completely different situation to a heavy duty off road vehicle,which I believe the Grenadier is.

Although for some it may be only used around town.

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In keeping with the Rover family during the early 1960s development of the Rover P6 car (2000 & 3500) with its rear De Dion and unique front independent suspension, Dunlop suggested radial tyres for it to Spencer King.

In fact, Dunlop did not have a 165 x 14 radial, only Pirelli. Dunlop agreed to produce the right size specially for Rover, and Rover agreed to dual source its tyres so that the first P6s came with either Dunlop SP tubeless or Pirelli Cinturato tubed tyres as original equipment.
(acknowledgement to James Taylor)

Back to Holden's RTS for a moment and expanding on Rick's comments, I also thought that the rejigging of the suspension geometry and spring rates/damper valving was done to take advantages of those new fangled radial tyres?

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Originally Posted by DieselDan

Back to Holden's RTS for a moment and expanding on Rick's comments, I also thought that the rejigging of the suspension geometry and spring rates/damper valving was done to take advantages of those new fangled radial tyres?

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I think that was more marketing, from interviews I read donkeys years ago Peter Hannenberger was pretty horrified how the HJ/HX Kingswood drove when he arrived in Australia, the previous head engineer was from the US and tuned the suspension as they would for there, light spring rates, high roll rates, lots of compliance in the bushes, light steering (ie, little caster) and lots of understeer as it was deemed to be safer for the average punter. The front end would start to let go early and gradually where the average driver, correctly, would back off before things got 'interesting'
Ford's of the time were considered to be more of a drivers car as they didn't plough near as badly.
Mr Hannenberger (sp?) tuned the entire range for a more European feel, but IIRC they were all on radials by then.
Dad had a fleet of panel vans and I remember him saying the HQ's came with bias belts but he fitted I think Uniroyal radials when they wore out as he reckoned they were a lot safer, but the HX and HZ vans came with radials from the factory, although the HZ had the RTS setup anyway, as did the salesman and mum's TD Gemini's