38" Swampers + ProComp Wheels + DIY Beadlocks

[woytovich]

Start with a bucket.

Add a piece of carefully cut plywood.

now a spare hub assembly will drop down in the hole you cut... (bolt it to the plywood for stability)

Sit the wheel onto the hub. (a couple of lug nuts will hold it securely in place)

 

[woytovich]

Now it'll spin smoothly making grinding and welding evenly much easier. I MAY add something to spin it slowly for me - a belt and electric motor (drill?).

 

[cruisermatt]

Great idea. Assuming you are using MIG, from my experience with welding with a positioner you need to have your rotating speed and weld settings exactly right beforehand or you are going to be fighting the positioner. If you can variably control the speed of the positioner while you weld this would also help tremendously. Not as big of an issue with TIG as you can give it more or less pedal...

 

[White Stripe]

I welded mine on a bench. If I had to do it again I would have gotten the diy beadlocks that also self center the bead. Also no matter what I tried, they always leaked, so I finally just installed innertubes, which has the added bonus of not loosing air if i burp the inner bead now. I don't envy the work ahead of you. At times I wish I had just bought some cheap used wheels and glued my tires to them.

 

[woytovich]

"self-center the bead"?

 

[White Stripe]

"self-center the bead"?

Ya it's kinda hard to get the bead situated exactly in the center.
Mayhem Metal Works, Simi Valley, Ca. 4X4 Off - Road Shop / Fabrication.

 

[woytovich]

So it centers the tire AND works as a (partial) anti-coning ring.... nice.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

That's a good idea Mark. I might have to steal that

 

[zipper]

I just went with Interco Birddogs, and haven't had any issues at 8psi. Yet. And the lack of balancing and street-ability is nice because I like to drive the truck.

 

[woytovich]

Those look cool.

"Lack of balancing"?

 

[zipper]

Those look cool.

"Lack of balancing"?

Well, relative to beadlocks.. I was also told by 4wheel parts that interco sucked at delivering them, so he suggested I not buy them. (225 apiece). So, I called interco and told them what their vendor said, and she sold me 5 for 500 plus shipping. That kinda made it a no brainer. I should have bought a second set for some 35" at street tires. Oh dopy me. Not thinking on my feet.

 

[d90rover]

For true bead locks, you could also have gone to Trail Worthy Fab for their custom Hummer wheel/tire combos. The price is impossible to beat.

Custom Hummer Wheels w/ Tire Combos

They made up a set for our old Rubicon and they were fantastic.

Mikey

 

[woytovich]

Got some work done on the first wheel today. A proof of concept. I am trying a little different approach to welding and making the dealio air tight. I decided to do the structural weld of the ring from the back side and to air seal from the top with some rubber-ish stuff designed for sealing cracks in driveways etc. It flows when heated and hardens to a rubber-like consistency (a little softer than vulcanized rubber). It won't flow once it gets to normal temperatures but stays flexible so if the wheel flexes at all it should stay sealed. We shall see.

Here it is part way done... I did a few more welds between the more spaced out ones shown here - good penetration I think. And honestly I think it is actually better to have the place where the ring is attached to the wheel close to the bolt holes - it should be marginally stronger than with the welds out at the outer edge... or at least be less likely to flex the ring when the bolts are tightened.

This is a weld looking up under the ring. Not the prettiest but I think it'll do the job. (you can see the thin seam between the ring and the wheel that I'll be looking to seal with the goop....

Welding done and the wheel's outer lip ground down to be flush with the ring. (ring is 3/16... if I'd gotten 1/4 I probably wouldn't have had to grind.)

This is the stuff. $12 at Home Depot for more than I could possibly use on 5 wheels. Comes as a roll of black stuff that looks like licorice!

And this is what the first little section I applied looks like. When you heat it it flows like crazy, right down into the very narrow crack betweek the ring and the wheel lip. I will later heat up the "overflow" and wipe it mostly off - I want to retain as flat a surface as possible for the tire bead to sit on. Since the air pressure will the trying to push this in I think it'll seal nicely.

 

[woytovich]

This bucket/hub rig thingy made the grinding much easier. The grinder friction spins the wheel, modulate the spinning with the angle the grind wheel engages the surface...
(Wheel was catching on the piece of wood that the hub is mounted to (I trimmed the corner later) so it was binding up... ) so at this point I was having a little trouble getting it started)

 

[woytovich]

Not sure if it is a thing that people do but I gently ground off the sharp edges left by the laser cutting all around the inner edge of the weld-on ring and both edges of the bolt-on ring. They seemed like a likely place to get cut when messing with lug nuts or airing up/down. And I'm not sure if there would be any potential problem with the outer edge of the bolt on ring cutting into the tire if it was super bagged out or pinched against a rock - but now the sharp edges are gone.

 

[White Stripe]

I got rid of the sharp edges as well, I didn't want a cut tire. Hopefully that goop works for you, I couldn't get mine to stop leaking.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

IDK if that's enough weld, but I like your out of the box thinking.

 

[woytovich]

I hope the weld is enough... I could be wrong. It is >50% coverage. I don't have a picture with all the welds complete... I welded between most of what you see in the picture above.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I hope the weld is enough... I could be wrong.

That's not a good perspective to have when you're building your own wheels.

 

[White Stripe]

The only thing I see by welding the back side only, is that during use forces will be trying to pull the weld apart rather than pull the weld together as it would if you welded it in the front. Are your stitch welds enough as is so that it can handle the pull affect? My personal opinion is its borderline. But that is just by looking at it and going by opinion. No hard data.
For all of these reasons, I question if I would do bead locks again. For roughly 100 bucks for a standard steel wheel, I could glue the wheels to the tires and just replace wheels with tires and save weight at the same time as well as complexity. But they do look cool, and work once all together. Personally I think I have roughly 4 hours labor into each diy bead lock wheel if including fabrication and leak diagnosis and repair.