Tim, Are these tires on the stock '54 rims? Tubes? Any other details?
The set I have on my Suburban has radial-tubes and they have worked fine for over 7 years (with high speed driving).
My rims are all stock 16"x4.5 truck rims.
The Cooper dealer installed the tires/tubes and balanced them. He also recommended using plastic sleeves/protectors where the valve comes through the rim.
The next set that I buy for the 54 1/2 ton pickup I am restoring will have no tubes - these wheels are in beautiful conduction and I have had them trued and powder-coated. And, I will probably use balancing beads rather conventional weight-balancing (
here's a discussion on balancing beads). 
