DIY beadlocks on the street

Slut99

Slut99

Member
Joined
May 17, 2013
Location
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Hey guys.

I'm building a set of DIY beadlocks for my jeep TJ I drive it on the street and I'm wondering how well these balance out with beads.

How many people have used these on the street??? My jeep is far from a good ride so im not worried about some vibrations.


What yyou're experiences??
 
Best advice I can give is start with a perfectly straight, new steel wheel that's never been off-road and has no chances of being warped. Get a quality DIY kit and install it correctly and carefully. Balance with BBs or pellets and you'll be fine. They'll feel like a factory wheel if you maintain them. Always check for loose bolts.
I've owned multiple sets and I can tell where I screwed up first go around
 
Stay away from ones that have wide outter rings once they take a good hit they bend and they you'll get a vibration. That's how mine are


Other question how often do you plan on going wheeling and what size/kind of tire do you plan on running. You don't have to have beadlocks to air down.
 
Well I already ordered new wheels

And I got the bead lock kit off here some guy makes them they seam to be pretty decent but not 100% perfect but I have 20$ in the beadlocks rings.

They are going on a 35" MTR kevlars. I want beadlocks for the coolness factor and also so I can air down even more.. I usually run 10psi or so.. But now I can go lower.....
 
Thanks guys

Just built some for my buddy
 

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Fabrik8 said:
I think it needs more bolts. I don't think there are enough. ;)
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I've actually seen a guy use an old school bubble balancer machine on a set of beadlocked tires and to get a true balance would use washers as weights and when it was perfect, would stack the washers on the underside of the bolts according to where needed and tighten down. Worked like a champ.
 
Fabrik8 said:
I think it needs more bolts. I don't think there are enough. ;)
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Naw man, the Hummer's only use 8, and they are mil-spec!
 
XJsavage said:
I've actually seen a guy use an old school bubble balancer machine on a set of beadlocked tires and to get a true balance would use washers as weights and when it was perfect, would stack the washers on the underside of the bolts according to where needed and tighten down. Worked like a champ.
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That is very helpful. Never woulda thought about that thanks
 
Infamous1 said:
Why is a bubble balancer not "proper"?
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A static balance may be fine for low speed use, but if you're actually driving at street speeds then a dynamic balance will serve you a lot better. Bubble balancers may work okay for really skinny wheels and tires, which is really how the concept started many decades ago. If you're statically balancing something that is similar to a disc (skinny wheel/tire), it's very different than statically balancing a cylinder (modern-ish wheel/tire). The problems with balancing a cylinder from a single static point really don't matter that much at low speeds. It really just depends on how decent of an actual balance job you want, and what speeds you're driving, etc.
 
I've seen a bubble balancer used to figure out how many air soft pellets to run. Fill a ziplock bag with bbs till it levels out, add a little more for good measure then drop them in the tire. If you use too many bbs it can cause weird tire vibrations too in my experience. It's another one of those things where if a little is good more is better doesn't work
 
Getting the tires centered is going to be the hard part.
It would be worth while to make a 3/8" wide band that just centers the tire and then a 1/2" wide anti coning ring to keep the beadlock true. I have bb's in my 42's and they shake a little till you get above 20 and then smooth out pretty good but I don't run hi speed with them.
Another thing you will need to consider is the how hard the extra rotating weight is going to be on those little factory brakes.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
Biggest thing that will affect balance is getting the tire on there even
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A well balanced off center tire is better than an unbalanced off center tire. What's the old saying? Can't see it from my seat?
 
When my Jeep used to run on the road, I was rotating between my street tires (35" mudkings) and 35" boggers I had weld on beadlocks on the Boggers. I wrapped 10oz of BB's in a napkin, closed it with a rubber band, and pput them inside the tire before putting on the ring. a beat up old CJ, running 70 mph, rode as good as it did with 31X10.50's
I agree with Chris, a centering ring would be very helpful! Seems to be somewhat of a nightmare to get the tire centered, and KEEP it centered during the tightening process.
 
Just something I've noticed doing beadlocked conversions over the years is that all outer rings are not the same, nor are tires. The best fit I ever got from a combo was a bfg km1 and an A-Z fab weld on kit for a 15. The km1 had a thick bead protector that helped with the tire seating and the outer rings of the A-Z kit fit very snug into the tire. Almost fool proof. I added 8 oz of airsofts per tire and they rode amazingly well up to 80 mph and wore evenly, all 50k miles I got out of them.
:D
 
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