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Okay, finally got around to building up my spare, and went to stick it up under the truck. One problem. The 285 tire seems to be a tad big for the space. It's barely fitting between the frame rails, which might be okay to live with, but it sits about 1" or so from the exhaust. Just checking to see what others running this larger size have done. I'm thinking some sort of heat shield is in order. Wouldn't want to ruin a new tire.

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I just put mine on last week. My truck did not have a spare wheel or tire when I got it. The tire fits fine right against the frame rails which I think helps keep the tire locked in place and since it is a good sized (heavy) tire that is a good thing. My exhaust has a heat shield integrated/welded on the pipe right where it is closest to the tire. I don't know if the heat will have long term affects or not but I will keep an eye on it.

James

 

in order to damamge the tire the heat would extremely hot... if it isnt in direct contact then you would have a problem.. what you could do is if you got an older more or a "crappier" tired laying around cut a chunk off and hold it on the exhaust when the truck is at normal running temp... and you can even tie it on there with a coat hanger and drive around seeing the exhaust temp would obviously rise during driving and higher RPM opteration... now if the tire is melting but not too bad during the hottest temp of the exhaust... it aint a big deal..mainly b/c it is in DIRECT contact with the exhaust... you can fab up some nice gauge sheet metal (the thicker the better) and some how fasten it in place to gaurd it... even a better way around it is the use of header wrap...when i had my first exhaust put on it came dangrously close to my new procomp shocks and boots.. and started to melt the boots ( the boots are ALOT thinner and a lesser grade of rubber then tires obviously) so i went to autozone and got a spool of header wrap and wraped the sections that were near the boots and fixed that problem quick and easy and it was out of sight so it wasnt ugly.. i used to hose clamps the fasten the wrap in place.. and ran it that way for about 2000 miles and after taking off the wrap when the piping was scrapped..there was no sighns of rust or corosion like some claims have been made... and that was driving the wet and dry weather with pretty much all types of conditions and temps... even about 2 weeks of heavy snow and salt conditions... either way i dont see it being a large problem... tires now a days especially nice aftermarket tires..are built strong as hell..ive heard that companys put out ratings on tires for temp thresh holds...not knowing any other details im sure you can call a tire shop and the "tire guy" should know something about it... tires have to have a certain amount of resistance to heat due to accidents .. etc etc etc.. and thats pretty much all i can think of... a nice guage of steel and or wrap should do you just right.. good luck dude!!!!