The whole idea behind the different patterns is to prevent someone from swapping on tires and more importantly wheels that are designed for the rated load. Tires with higher inflation pressures can carry heavier loads. Try searching online junk yards. He quickly replaced them with some factory rally wheels. D The mark of D denotes your tire's load range, or ply rating.
Gm seems to like the six on its light duty lines. I bet there were some Ford owners upset because their options were limited if they wanted to swap-in aftermarket wheels. Ford should have either kept with the 6 lug F-150 or gone to the same wheel as a F-250 Super Duty. In 1997, Ford decided to get creative. Thanks for the help everyone, It doesn't pay to take pictures right now because it is dark out but I just looked at the door jam and the weight is 8600.
Conor I have one of those 1997 Ford F-250 Light Duty pickups that uses a 7 lug rim. A load range of D means that the tire has a ply rating of 8. The clamping force is called preload. Tube rims had a 5 degree slope to the seat and tubeless were 15 degrees. This may be the only 3 bolt wheel car in prodcution at the moment.
Wheel bolt patterns for passenger cars and light trucks have been pretty consistent over the past sixty years or so. This F150 has to be one of the better ones! Those were airtight and tubeless tires were the intended use. While one might logically think that the load is carried in shear sideways , that is not the case here. Letters further along in the alphabet represent stronger tires that can sustain higher inflation pressures. I have one of those 1997 Ford F-250 Light Duty pickups that uses a 7 lug rim. This was rejected for cost considerations. Wonder if the wheels had speed ratings? Only after removing the hubcap could you tell the difference.
I am a little confused on the chevy. Interestingly enough, Toyota switched to a 5 lug pattern for the fullsize Tundra in 2007, though the smaller Tacoma stayed with 6. One of the original suggestions for avoiding this was to have a different lug pattern for 16s and 16. Prior to 1997, there was no need to call it Heavy Duty, since there was only one F-250 in the lineup. The whole idea behind the different patterns is to prevent someone from swapping on tires and more importantly wheels that are designed for the rated load.
Unnecessary over-engineering in my opinion. Suggest you Google 'Motor Grenade' for the spec on how motors were to be rendered useless. Or any other vehicle for that matter? Ford did this before when they still marketed the F-100 trucks. D The mark of D denotes your tire's load range, or ply rating. I never saw a point to it. This is the truck that Ford always quotes for the high F-150 payload in there ads. Only after removing the hubcap could you tell the difference.
My 3 cyl Metro also gets like triple the mileage of my F250. Letters further along in the alphabet represent stronger tires that can sustain higher inflation pressures. It goes 3 times further per gallon of gas than my F150. Rather, the center hole of the wheel fit precisely on the hub of the axle flange or brake rotor and the lug nuts were flat faced with an integral washer. Not a terrible idea, but less than convenient.
The F-250 used in the 1997 generation Ford trucks was nothing new. This option package still uses the ridiculous 7 bolt wheels. Conor Actually 'Cash For Clunkers' program only destroyed a tiny percentage during its brief run. I have found that buying many parts of this truck is a challenge due to the model year transition. Then, in 2004 when Ford brought out the next generation F150, they switched over to 6 lugs.