Then there's one more.

My Y2K 7700 4x4 has 245/75R16's, brush plates, and simple 4x4 decal.

 

I priced the ford ones a while back and I can't remember how much they were.What you can do, is go to www.fordpartsonline.com and ask them for a quote or just go to the parts dept at your local dealer(mine had no clue that a person could order them up and install them on a non off road package truck)After about 1/2 hour he finally found the parts in his computer and produced al the part #s with an associated price. GOOd luck

 

I have recently had a chance to buy four goodyear wrangler RT/S 265/75/17's for my 1997 F150 with ORP. It has these no-name "Ridge Runners" on it and I was going to replace them with BFG A/T's once I needed to. But a friend had a pair of RT/S off his expedition with only 7,000 miles on them. I can get the four for $250 to $300 dollars. Should I or spend the money on one of the best looking and performing truck tire around, BFG All terrains?

 

That's a great price for a set of tires. 300 bucks is almost half the price of a set of BFG's, but.....RT/S is nowhere near half the tire that the BFG is.

 

Yeah RebelYell, I realize they are not half the tires that BFG A/T's but I am wondering if it is too good a deal to pass up? By the way, how hard is it to crank up the torsion bars? Does she ride like a board after?

_______________
1997 Black F150 w/ORP 5spd, 4.6L, head light covers, pw,pl, cc, 6disc cd changer, rear slider, 30% all around, and ventvisors.

 

my sport 4x4 is bright red and came with . . get this . . bright yellow sport 4x4 stickers!!! does it get any uglier than that? so . . about 20 minutes in the garage with a hair dryer to heat the decals and pull them off took care of that!!!

 

mhussey...
I have so many posts here about how bad the RT/S tires are, I won't even go into it again, but I have never been so thoroughly disgusted with a set of tires in all my life. If that is all a person can afford at the time, then they will suffice (my RT/S's are in the rafters of my shop in case I fall on rough financial times and need tires .....EXTREMELY rough times hehehe).

As for TORSION BARS, cranking them is way easy, takes about 5 minutes and rides no different that I can tell.

 

I haven't put the tires on my truck yet, they are also in the rafters of my garage. My dad's F150 has RT/S and they cupped and wore fast (but he now has 40k miles on them). I don't like what I hear about how poor they are in snow and mud. What are the main reason(s) you hate them so much? Oh, what is adjusted on the torsion bars to lift the front? Thanks

 

Ok, here I go again. What I dislike about the RT/S is traction..... or lack thereof.
The truck came with the tires on it and I thought that the tread pattern was not very well suited for a 4x4, but that was about it.
at 2000 miles, I replaced them with BFG A/Tko's.

The truck would leave two black marks on the pavement 12 feet long with the RT/S's from a standing start, with the BFG's it would only slightly bark the tires. (better traction)

After wearing out the BFG's, I put the RT/s's back on until I could find some larger size tires(choice is very limited in 17" tires). After becoming accustomed to the truck's abilities and handling characteristics with the BFG's, the poor performance of the RT/S was very apparent. Numerous times on my commute to/from work on dry pavement, coming to the same stop signs in the same manner as I always did with the BFG's, the RT/S would lose traction under braking and the ABS would come into play.(less traction) Needless to say, the first few times this happened, it scared the heck out of me

In a sharp curve near my house, the rear end fishtailed out at the same speed I always take that same curve(not an excessive speed by the way) (less traction for the RT/S)

All that is on DRY pavement. On wet pavement, the tires are downright dangerous in my opinion. I won't even go into all that slipping and sliding. I drove like Granny every where just to stay between the ditches on wet pavement. Suffice it to say I have felt more comfortable in snow conditions before that in rain with the RT/S.

I now have another set of BFG A/Tko's. Same size. Handle excellent just like my first set of them. RT/S's are back up in the rafters...awaiting another black day.

Perhaps I got a set of bad tires with poor tread rubber or something, I don't know. Also, there are at least 2 variations of RT/S. A guy at work has a new Dodge with RT/S and his tires have a slightly different tread pattern out near the shoulder of the tire, but the sidewall has RT/S written on it, just like mine. He has no opinions, good or bad, about his tires. But then neither did I until I got a set good tires and realized just how bad the RT/S were.

I sincerely hope you are more satisfied with your RT/S than I was with mine.
Good luck and be careful

Keep me posted on your opinions about them after you put them on. I would like to know how you like them.

 

I will be sure to make a post once I have them put on, but that will probably be six months from now. I will keep you posted on what I think. Once these tires need replacement, I will own four new 265/70/17 BFG A/T's. Or, maybe by then, a 285/75/17 A/T will be available! I had 245/60's BFG Radial T/A on my 84 Camaro and they were awesome tires. They never broke traction and even made the car handle noticably better then the previous tires. Anyways, I'll be posting later.

 

Almost forgot about the torsion bar question!

Park the truck on a level spot, preferrably a concrete pad or asphalt. Measure from the ground to the bumper or frame at the front, on both the left and right sides to see if your truck is actually level side to side.

If all the following is confusing, you will easily understand once you crawl under your truck and look at the bars.

Under the truck, at the rearward end of the torsion bars is a bolt, head down. (I forgot what size) If your "before" measurements indicated your truck was not level side to side, level it now by turning the bolt on the side which measured lower clockwise(screw it in) By screwing it in, you are twisting the torsion bar tighter, and raising the truck on that side.

After leveling the truck, you can raise the front of the truck by turning the bolts on both torsion bars the same amount up to 2 1/2 revolutions. (All the posts I have seen here indicate that any more than 2 1/2 revolutions will cause the angle of the CV joints to be so severe that excessive wear will result in the CV joint.)

I turned mine 2 1/2 times and it leveled my truck out nicely.
Real easy. Took about 5 minutes.

you can search the posts and get many good posts concerning this. Most of which will be more descriptive than this one.

Hope I have helped you a little

 

Thanks, I'll have to adjust them after I install my stereo system. Oh wait, I can't do that because the truck is in the shop getting checked out for metalic grinding noise on start up and an awful annoying rap "diesel-like" sound when shifting or putting the RPM's up over 2500. Anyways, thanks for the help...this site is cool. If I remember correctly, do you have Polk Audio's in your truck? If so, how do they sound? (I love polk audio home speakers and decided to get some for my truck...besides, Polk does nothing but speakers and they sure know how to build em.

 

Nope, no Polks. Stereo is stock except for the addition of a 12 disk CD changer.

 

Oh, sorry about the misunderstanding...it must of been someone else that was running Polk DX7's. I plan on installing my stereo system tomorrow, when I get my truck back from the shop. SHE NEEDS A NEW MOTOR!!! No way am I paying Mr. ASE certified Ford Mechanic $3900 to install a remanufactured motor and risk the possibility of piston slap! I will have it rebuilt and get a 4yr/40k mile warranty...even a better warranty than when it was new!! Anyways, take 'er EZ.

 

That is a great warranty. Is it a chain garage or an local shop?.
Hope you are pleased with the rebuild.