Tires: tire and rim question, rim width, snow tires

Question
Hi Mr. Smith Is me again the plymouth p11 dude, I was looking on this other web site and the guy wrote about his car tires this,       ( put Dunlop Rover A/T radial 215/70 R16 tires on the front and back. and threw the rotten 15" snow tires that had been on the back into the trunk for spares.

The 215/70 R16 tires are about an inch wider than they should be to replace the 16x6.00 tires that were standard. Height is right. In my limited experience, you can use these WITHOUT tubes on these Plymouth "Safety" rims!),  and this is his web site    http://www.rreid.net/1941Plymouth/  can you please tell me if I can do this or can you give me the distance from hole to hole in a star pattern and from hole to hole in circle pattern and the big center hole on this rim? thanks for your time

Answer
Jay,

How much risk are you willing to accept?

A P215/70R16 reuires a rim width in the 5 1/2" to 7" range.

So if you are willing to accept the consequences of that then OK.. What consequences? Well, tire wear in the center of the tread - and while this has nothing to do with any potential failure - any failure can be attributed to this - so be prepared to lose the whole vehicle and not be able to recover the cost.    

This is in addition to the issue about the rims leaking air.

As to your question about hole to hole dimensions - There are some web sites that give this info, so search a bit.  I'm sure you'll find them.