weekly update
I gathered all my wheel stuff together to put them together.
I had access to a band saw so I cut off the rubber humps on the runflats.
That saved me almost 18lbs per wheel!
I was interested in the weigh gain so I started weighing a few things. This is the back half of the rim and weighs in at 31 lbs with pressed centers welded in.
The front half weighs in at 19 lbs with the half rings welded on.
The military wranglers weigh in at 81 lbs.
To install the inserts for the bead lock I found the best way for me was to push/pry in the two halves one going up and the other going down. Then I'd work them together at the bottom of the tire mostly using a long screwdriver.
Orientation of the two pieces is important. The hump piece goes with the shoulder to the inner bead, the flat piece has arrows on it to show which side goes to the outer bead. The flat piece is grooved for air flow from the valve. The groove perpendicular is important to line up with the valve on the front half of the rim. Just set this piece centered between two studs when putting it on the rim and then place the front half with the valve lined up to that groove.
After some beating, prying, and language my kids shouldn't hear I got all the inserts lined up. One of the tires was greased inside but I found that didn't help because it would just slip out of spot.
This is where the o-ring goes on the 12bolts. I lubed it with a light coating of grease so that as the front half bolts down it will slip it into that groove. I also stretched them a little to sit in the groove better.
I ended up using some WD-40 to spray the rims and the inside of the tires to make mounting them easier. I used the bucket on one of them and then just put the rest together on the ground. Since these are only 12.50 wide tires I was able to get away with that. I could see the bucket coming in handy for wider tires though. Here some quick shots on Dora.
It kind of gives Dora a baja flavor I think. Not bad but I'll start saving up for some bigger meats since they look really small to me.
Drove on the hwy today and while they are quieter they are not any smoother than the PJs (the other three PJs ran pretty true). I can probably get away with a little less toe-in too. I'm going to get these balanced since I'm not worried about the tire slipping on the rim anymore rendering a balance job useless. She did get some weigh gain. Total weight for my aluminum rims and PJs was 100lbs a piece. Total weight for the recentered, rock-ringed, hump cut 2 piece rubber bead locks, running military goodyears came out to 140lbs a piece. So I gained 80 lbs per axle. Can't wait to air these suckers down to single digits.
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