280z space saver spare tire replacement?

[S30Driver]

Looks like a neat, creative solution for any 280z that has stock front calipers & rotors.  In my case, with the Willwoods on the front, a front flat would cause me to move the rear up front and put the spare on the back.

[chaseincats]

4 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

Sorry for the delay.  I haven't been on-line much over the past few days.  Some details about my spare tire project...

What I ended up using was a  115/70/14 tire from something in a junkyard. I don't remember what it came from, but it was probably a Nissan product. Older Sentra or Maxima probably. I bought it because it had the right 4x4.5 lug pattern. Problem was... I tried it on my car and it fit OK on the back but wouldn't clear the front calipers.

So I took the tire off the space saver spare and had it remounted on the narrowest wheel I could find that had the correct offset and would clear the front calipers. The wheel I used came from an early (65) roadster) and it is four inches wide

I didn't move the space saver tire over to the 280 original spare wheel because I was worried that the 280 spare wheel was too wide. The space saver tire was originally on a four inch wide rim and the original 280 spare wheel is five inches wide. I wasn't comfortable stretching that narrow tire out to a five inch wide rim.

I think you could use a 4.5 inch wide rim, but since I was in there messing around anyway, I took the opportunity to make it as narrow as possible so I could drop the false wood floor down and gain some more cargo head-room back there. I ended up dropping the floor level about an inch-and-a-half.

Gotcha.  So are donut wheels permanently inflated or do you inflate them when you take them out of the spare tire well?

[Captain Obvious]

 

7 hours ago, chaseincats said:

Gotcha.  So are donut wheels permanently inflated or do you inflate them when you take them out of the spare tire well?

The typical donut spares are fully inflated when not in use. Pull 'em out and slap 'em on. And that's what I have with mine. Assuming mine has been holding air properly since the last time I looked at it, it should be ready to use without having to inflate it when I pull it out.

12 hours ago, S30Driver said:

a front flat would cause me to move the rear up front and put the spare on the back.

And with the stock brakes, that was an option with the space saver spare that I bought from the junkyard. Right out of the yard with no mods, it fit OK on the back over the rear drum, but wouldn't clear the front calipers. So if I had a flat on the front, I could have pulled a rear wheel first and then moved that rear to the front.

But the last thing I want to do when changing a wheel in an emergency situation is to have to do it twice. Along the side of a highway... once is bad enough. So for me, it was worth the extra effort and piece of mind to move the space saver rubber over to a different wheel that would fit on either front or rear.

[chaseincats]

1 hour ago, Captain Obvious said:

 

The typical donut spares are fully inflated when not in use. Pull 'em out and slap 'em on. And that's what I have with mine. Assuming mine has been holding air properly since the last time I looked at it, it should be ready to use without having to inflate it when I pull it out.

And with the stock brakes, that was an option with the space saver spare that I bought from the junkyard. Right out of the yard with no mods, it fit OK on the back over the rear drum, but wouldn't clear the front calipers. So if I had a flat on the front, I could have pulled a rear wheel first and then moved that rear to the front.

But the last thing I want to do when changing a wheel in an emergency situation is to have to do it twice. Along the side of a highway... once is bad enough. So for me, it was worth the extra effort and piece of mind to move the space saver rubber over to a different wheel that would fit on either front or rear.

The original accordion tire has a lot more sidewall when inflated, the car can actually drive with that super tiny wheel/no sidewall?  Nothing scrapes?

[Captain Obvious]

I put the reworked donut spare on and drove around a little bit. Nothing scrapes. Now don't get me wrong... The car feels terrible with that spare installed and the steering wheel doesn't even sit straight, but it would get me to the next exit in the event of a flat.

And it looks so sexy!!    

 

[chaseincats]

9 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

I put the reworked donut spare on and drove around a little bit. Nothing scrapes. Now don't get me wrong... The car feels terrible with that spare installed and the steering wheel doesn't even sit straight, but it would get me to the next exit in the event of a flat.

And it looks so sexy!!    

 

Haha that's awesome.  Thanks for all the info, gang!  I will do some junkyard donut tire hunting soon!

[Captain Obvious]

Haha! You like that? Here's another shot so you can get the full visual impact of that donut:

But the important part is that even when fully inflated, it fits in the 77-78 spare tire well:

[Captain Obvious]

So in summary.... There aren't a lot of different donut spare sizes. The only 14 inch version I found was T115/70/14. (Don't get the 15 inch spare. Won't fit.)

You can get the space saver with the correct lug pattern and probably use it on the rear right from the yard. But it probably won't fit in the front.

If it doesn't fit over the front calipers, your choices are to move the tire to a different wheel (like I did), or in the event of a front flat, move one of your rear wheels up front and use the space saver on the rear.

[chaseincats]

Just now, Captain Obvious said:

So in summary.... There aren't a lot of different donut spare sizes. The only 14 inch version I found was T115/70/14. (Don't get the 15 inch spare. Won't fit.)

You can get the space saver with the correct lug pattern and probably use it on the rear right from the yard. But it probably won't fit in the front.

If it doesn't fit over the front calipers, your choices are to move the tire to a different wheel (like I did), or in the event of a front flat, move one of your rear wheels up front and use the space saver on the rear.

Sounds good, thanks so much for all of this info.  Are any of you headed to zcon this year?  We should all meet up at some point.

[Acemon]

My 240z has enough room for an ordinary spare, but I'm curious about the weight difference with the donut spare.

[siteunseen]

They are using the doughnut spares in the raised rear deck of the '77 and '78 280s with larger fuel tanks.  They came with a collapsible spare and a can of air 40 plus years ago so you can't really trust them anymore.

The weight difference would be about the same as a gallon of gas.

[SoCalJim]

I put a donut spare in my '75Z.  I bought it on eBay last year for $49 + shipping.  It appears to be unused.  Its size is 125/70/16 and it's from a 2012 Nissan Sentra.  I weighed it on my bathroom scale...26.2 lbs.

 

I also checked the weight of my new Panasport Z-lite wheels (16x7) with Continental ExtremeContact Sport tires (205/55/16)...39.0 lbs.

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by SoCalJim