On a standard rim there is are two "bells". These are the areas on the front lip and rear lip of the tire. There is generally a 3.5" valley in the center. The "bell" to the inside of the rim is large (~4") and is why the bead does not normally roll on this side. The "bell" on the outer edge is only 1.5". You can press the bead on the inside part of the rim in 1.5 to 2" before it rolls off of the rim. On the outside 3/4" usually does it.

Here is the question. Has anyone reversed the rim in order to decrease the back space from the standard 4" max to anything less (e.g. 3" or 2" back space)? It can be done, but I am wondering if anyone has trail experience with this type of mod. Anyone know of a wheel company that makes a rover bolt pattern that can make a wheel with a small backspacing without having to reverse the rim???

Way

P.S. I have been contacted by two different people looking for 2" wheel spacers. With my order that would make 10 individual spacer orders. Anyone want to order a set of 2" aluminum spacers from Rovertym with us???? Post here or email me directly.

Yes it has been done, Timm has done this many times. He has wheeled with them as well. As far as how the perform differently, that would be a question for him, but since he has done it more than once, the pros out way the cons.

-Jeff

A mate of mine had a set of the discovery S1 steel rims, which he cut the center piece out of and reverse it to give a MASSIVE offset.

he's now running 35x11.50x16 simex extreme's and has had no problems with tyres coming off of rims.

if you need some cutoms wheels making, try Matt Lee in the UK if you have no other sources nearer. he makes them to any offset or size.

Jamie

Hello Jamie

Any idea how much extra offset your mate ended up with and has he had any problems with them. I am strugling with this at the moment cause Land Rover built series axles 3" to narrow to get any flex out of :mad:

any chance of a picy of your mates set-up

He's not had any problems, and as he used a nice flat surface and an old LR hub to rest the center piece on, the wheels have sayed nice and 'true' (ie no wobbles).

I'll get some pics taken of his rig, and measure the offset. i don't know what the measurement is, but they look VERY offset!

Jamie

Cheers Jamie I look forwards to seeing them

It seems that wheel spacers and offset wheels for Land Rovers are an expensive problem for both sides of the Atlantic

Adam,

This happens ALL THE TIME...OR when less than 3.? backspace is required...A'la fitting a 15" rim on a standard Chev 60 front w/o grinding of the caliper. I've heard of no problems with this set-up...Bearing, spindle nothing. Keep in mind though what your width will be with that set-up! I thought about it, but with a 69" wide axle and 16" more track w/a 2" BS, AND a 15" wide tire, I'd need a semi to haul my rig around...Somewhere in the 93" wide category is too wide IMO.

--D

I should say that for all you skinny Rover winnies' out there, with a 2" BS you'd be fine! :flipoff2:

Hey RockRover we have a skinny country to go with our skinny Rovers :flipoff2: :flipoff2: :flipoff2:

Half your rigs wouldnt get through the first gate you got to out on the green lanes of the UK :D :D :D

Gon2far - You know, I was just reading the most recent LROI and the greenlaning articles. I was wondering if that could be any fun at all. I mean, from the pictures, it looks so easy and boring. Is it?

Tom

RVR OVR

Thats a triky one to answer. First you have to realise that we are a much smaller a more crowded country than you are. Then you have to realise that there is a strong body of opinion trying to ban 4x4 use anywhere on public rights of way. now the fact that the magazines try and present a public freindly version of off-roading is easier to understand. They wont even publish the locations of lanes clearly for fear of over use and abuse so I guess our scene is a lot different than yours (although you have the same land use issues). The magazines only show "extreme" off-roading on private sites and forign compertions. Although it has to be said that the UK idea of extreme usualy involves a lot of mud and a powerful winch.

Having waffled all that at you UK off-roading isnt anything like as extreme as your stuff basicaly because we just dont have acsses to the kind of terrain that you folks do. My 109 is proberbly the most flexy leaf sprung LR in the UK (someone shout if it isnt) and to be honest it makes most green laning fairly tame or a lot more tame than it used to be. Now I own a vehicle with some flex I find that I am looking to the driving centres to provide the terrain needed to work it a bit.

You should understand that long travel suspension is just not part of the UK off-road scene at all yet and that affects what people consider drivable or not. people over hear are just starting to consider it see this months LROI and my setup is causing a bit of a stir so people are at least talking about suspension now so we may see a change soon.

You folks must be board out of your skulls by UK off-road magazines, it suprises me that you dont get a bit more American material into them and stretch peoples imagination a bit.

that was a long load of waffle so feel free to rip it to bits

Originally posted by gon2far
Hey RockRover we have a skinny country to go with our skinny Rovers :flipoff2: :flipoff2: :flipoff2:

Half your rigs wouldnt get through the first gate you got to out on the green lanes of the UK :D :D :D

Hee, hee, hee...Gates'? What gates? :flipoff2: :flipoff2:

Actually your right...My rig would be a gate-plow at RCAA (ARCA)...And I gotta' go rear steer with with the wb I'm setteling on (112")...But I'm not that gonzo' yet to run RCAA (maybe Superlift or Warn though ;) ) And the rear steer is gonna' happen...I just want a season on her with 42's and 112...Then on goes the 40 splined, CTM'd, slugged rear steer 60! Mmmmmmmm... I can almost taste it!

BTW, your events over there aren't really boring to me because you have SPEED involved...Something we are getting too, but all in all, if your not pro, it's reeaaaallly slow.

--D

No need to rip it to bits, it all makes sense. "Extreme" is all in the eye of the beholder, anyway. To me, extreme is the level at which your current setup has difficulty performing at. When my Disco was bone stock, I had just as much, if not more, fun wheeling in it than I do today with all the modifications. The terrain has simply changed, and what I need to do for a challenge has changed. Here in the midwest of the US, we don't have very much to go on, maybe even less than the UK that is within a close enough driving distance that you could do it for a day trip. The saving grace is one off-road park that is privately owned with levels ranging from "extreme" for dedicated rock crawlers, to a fun and safe challenge for stock vehicles.

I do notice that in LROI there is a lot of emphasis and keeping the image of off roading as one of exploratory purposes with near-stock vehicles. To show pictures of vehicles with 44" tires tearing up the landscape certainly wouldn't help the cause.

Tom

Originally posted by RVR OVR
To show pictures of vehicles with 44" tires tearing up the landscape certainly wouldn't help the cause.

Tom


Uh oh...

31's? 42's? 54's? Doesn't matter to the 'cause' man. IMO it's the guy's with 31's that are the main cause of the cause....Read, more prevelant on the most traveled (and visable) trails.

--D

Point taken.

Tom

Tom
glad you could extract the point from all that waffle my 109 is more extreme in the suspension department than most any other over hear and i am only begining to explore what that amount of articulation gives me but like you say one thing it definatly gives me is less fun driving the stuff i used to drive and an itching to find ever more challenging terain to drive. at the end of the day it doesnt mater how capable your rig is its being on the edge of its capability that gets your pulse racing. I think that in the UK private sites will step in to fill the gap for the person looking for extreme more and more and if people start to exercise more imagination in building their rigs then the terrain available will have to keep up.

ROCKROVER
that thing of yours will be huge when you get it built (got any more photos to show off yet) it would be so out of scale with the UK. Half our driving is an interferance fit even for a standard width LR also we have these shity things called laws:mad: :mad: so unless you keep your rig leagle which includes keeping the rubber covered up it becomes a trailer queen.

High speed rockcrawling now thats got to be a thing to see:eek: :eek: any time you want to swap some of our speed for some of your slow but intricate rockcrawling im up for it.

Yea I feel for you man...Except you can literally jump in your expedition equipped Rover and head to sooooooo many places that my wife and I have to save major $ to visit...I would LOVE to be able to hit the alps for a couple of weeks...Then shoot over to the Mediterranean coast to soak up some...Man...Talk about heaven.

However one of the MANY things I love about living in Santa Fe New Mexico is the freedom we have here...No lift laws', vehicle registration is based on vehicle WEIGHT rather than WORTH, no smog, fender wells', beadlock's or other mundane laws designed to keep you in line...And especially the thousands of acres of public lands that are still available to those who want to explore in a 4x4...Heaven.

--D

No wait! New Mexico is a terrible place...Hot, dry, dusty...And the chickens in the streets are the WORST! Especially when the humidity hit's! I can't wait to move from here!!!

Thanks for the info. Just ordered two of them with 1.5" backspacing. From what I hear here, along with some other spots is that the inner bead is highly unlikely to roll regardless. From what Greg Miller (sales rep for high impact) said, is that they do this mod almost daily. He says that I may want to be careful on extreme trails at under 5 psi, but I don't plan on running that low anyways. I ordered some 15 x 10" wheels, so in three weeks (expected delivery time), I will have a full set of four 15 x 8" GCR rims ready to trade or sale (I know this isn't the "for sale" section fo the site, but here is a :beer: to look the other way).

Way

Way - Where did you order from & what's the contact info? I may go this route, too.

Tom

This info was given in the post you labeled US Wheel.

"try:
http://www.high-impact.net/
he can get allied wheels and they can make you what you want.

I got 15x10 32 bolt beadlocks for $175ea." ---Roverhybrids---

I paid the same price.

Way

Hey gone2far, where abouts are you in the UK?

you're exactly right with the 'bad light on off roaders' story, it really pisses me off that the ramblers (walking fraternity) can walk around in groups of 20 or 30 people,but they start crying when 4 vehicle trundle past:mad: .with my project90 i;ve built i'm going to start venturing out towards Europe more and exploring stuff there.

Although deepest Wales is pretty good!!:beer:

Jamie

Hello Jamie

Although deepest Wales is pretty good!!:beer:

Yep I know cause thats where I hale from, the midle of mid Wales with miles and miles of highly contested lanes literaly outside my front door. Much as I love being out in the hills as a lone vehicle I find myself leaning more to the pay and play sites to stretch the suspension mods I have.

what are you building for yourself that makes you want to hang out on the POR board :question: :question:

Did you get any photos of your mates wheels yet:question: Ive more or less decided to use the reverse rim idea, just waiting to get back to the workshop to put it into practice.

Should get me coil sprung track without 230.00 pounds worth of spacers (YES I know thats still skinny ROCKROVER:flipoff2: )

Pardon my confusion about reversing the rim - does this literally mean taking off the tire, turning it around, and putting the wheel on backwards? I can see how this would greatly help with stability at the least.

And how is cutting out the center of the wheel safe?

Also, any options for shallow backspacing beyond beadlocks? I'm not doing anything hardcore enough to warrant a need for beadlocks, but the wider track sounds wonderful.

Flame away at my ignorance...I'll be expecting some :flipoff2: :flipoff2: :flipoff2: in the reply!

--Matt

Blind leading the blind here, but I think they basically cut out the center section, spin it around, then weld it back in. Would be great for stock LR steel wheels.

Tom

Short Bus and others,

Looking at a rim without a tire on it. I will attach this picture and then explain it.

Way

The large bell is on the inside of the rim in all normal applications. The small bell is on the outside of the rim. When building rims with custom backspacing the centers are a round disc that they then insert and weld. This is how companies are able to make custom backspaced rims. Backspacing can be defined as the measurement from the inside of the rim to the wheel mounting plate on the wheel. Typicallly aftermarket rims (such as GCR rims) have a measurement of 4.25". Factory D90 have a 5.375" spacing. So by spacing the wheel mounting surface in by 1.125 your wheel sticks out further by that measurement.

For those of us that want a even wider stance than this (for stability amongst other reasons) we can either get a wheel spacer (1") or a custom backspaced rim.

Here is the problem. You cannot have a backspacing less than 4.25" without reversing the rim. This is because the disc has to mount in the valley portion of the rim. The large bell itself is usually 4" or so. the small bell is closer to 2" in measurement, so by reversing the rim you can have a bakspacing that is closer to 3" (which would put the wheel further out by 2.375").

Here is the last thing to consider. The large bell holds the bead of a tire on better than a small bell. By reversing the rim, you make it easier to roll the bead on the inside of the tire. If you push the bead in on the small side by 3/4" to 1" the bead will roll. If you push the bead in 1.5 to 2" on the large bell, it will roll. 99% of the time you roll the outer bead. Hence beadlocks on outer rims edge only. Potentially I could roll an inner bead more often by going this route. However inner beads rarely roll, and I am willing to take the risk. By having a beadlocked wheel reversed the bead is MUCH less likely to roll overall than prior. Many people run this set up in competition vehicles with out any problems. If it is good enough for their abuse, it is probably fine for all of us.

If you do not want beadlocks that is fine. This can be done to ANY rim. Hope that explains it clearly.

Way

So in that case to reverse you could cut the center valley out and reweld in reverse position I take it?

Making more sense now.

No cutting. You just flip the rim around prior to welding in the center of the wheel. Allows center of rim to be welded closer to the edge, hence a backspacing that gives a greater off-set.

Way

But people convert existing wheels like this, right, Way?

Tom

Can I get a list of wheel makers that could do custom backspacing? 5 on 6.5 isn't too common.

My D-90 has to drive to wherever I offroad it, so I can't go beadlocks due to legality issues.

As far as a list goes, it will be pretty small. Do a forum search and check out the thread titled US Wheel. There are many great sources.

I used High Impact.
http://www.high-impact.net/

I do not think that most of these companies build their own wheel. I assume that they buy the pieces from American Racing or similar un-built and then do the proper welding to accomadate the customers needs. I know high impact buys the wheels elsewhere and then does the proper machining etc for the beadlocks. All of these companies CAN DO non beadlocks. These will be more affordable as well.

As far as reusing existing wheels, I expect that new centers would have to be welded into your existing wheel. That falls into the depends catagory. Assuming that you have a wheel that is made of similar material, same color (if that is important),etc. I am sure the center could be cut out with a plazma cutter or similar and a new center welded in. However for the additional labor of doing this, it may be cost inefficient. I would suggest using your rims for the three weeks these things take to get made. Then having either two wheel sets, or sell your rims that you had prior to the new ones.

Way

Hey Way
cant belive how much apparent confusion this thread has caused:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: for such a simple mod its had a lot of trafick.

should be getting to do this to a set of rims in a week or two when i get home next and i will post some pics in due course. considering that ive strugled with the price of spacers for ages i cant belive that i never thought of this before:smokin:

Way,

Sorry if you posted this elsewhere, but did you do the beadlocks or not? Either way, can you share your specs with us if we want to get the same thing?

Thanks,

Tom

Sure,

I got 15 x 10" wheels. They look like the one on Shanes D90 (forum seach for a topic close to "are these too small???". They have a design similar to a GCR rim only they have a bit more shine to them. They have 32 bolts. The bolts are 5/16". I chose a huge off-set of 1.5" My front axle is 63" ish wide and my MRT beadlocks up front are a 3.5" back spacing. The fronts stick out 2.75" further than the rear tires. (4.25" BS on GCR rims-2.75" (difference)=1.5" back space). They take three weeks to make, and I ordered them last week, so I should get then in a week or so. I will post some pictures when I get them on.

Way

EDIT: if you want soemthing equivalant to a 2" spacer get a 2.25" back spacing.

Adam

I finally got home from work in Germany for 2 weeks and had a chance to study the rims fitted to my series LRs.

Can you belive it Land Rover built LWB rims with the larger bell on the outside so this mod is a complete non starter for us series folks.

looks like its back to the wheel spacers for now:mad:

most rim builders can either build them from scratch if the have the centers and rims you need

some can also cut them off and move them, depends if they are single center or double

doubles come from both sides and are joined.

I have a wheel builder that does race car rims all day every day, he has done my tire-locker customs for me for years and can build just about any offset needed.

Yeh I can get a set of rims built for about the same price as the spacers that I use at the moment I was just hoping that I could use Adams suggestion as a cheaper way of adding offset. Cheaper than the 200 English pounds it costs me for 4 spacers but it seems not.

Someone from Texas posted that running beadlocks was illegal.

I just wanted to share what we found out about running them in Oregon.

We *thought* that it was indeed illegal to run them on the street, that is until we got a complete copy of the Oregon Vehicle Code.

We searched it front to back, and nowhere in the section about tires does it even mention rims or wheels. There is no mention about beadlocked rims being illegal for road use.

We run them on the street now without concern.

I would suggest getting a copy of your state's vehicle code and studying it to find the specific statute that says running beadlocked rims is illegal. You just might find out that it's not.

Don't go on the 'heresay' that a friend of a friend heard someone say once that Billy Bob got a ticket because he was running beadlocks.

Find out for yourself first.

If you already know for certain that you can't, then I'm sorry. :(

Later,

Michael

PS As far as running rims that say 'DOT' on them, none of my rims on the Serious One are stamped that way, so I guess I am breaking the law???

As Ivor said to me in Moab last year, "Fawk 'em! Fawk 'em all!"

:flipoff2: :flipoff2: :flipoff2:

Sounds like a new post topic, but I have a friends that is state patrol and he comments that half of the force wouldn't know a beadlock from another. He says that he feels safe running beadlocks on his Jeep until he hears otherwise.

I received my rims from High-impact yesterday. They sent me the wrong backspacing and won't be in the office til the 13th:mad: They are nice though. even though the backspacing is more like 4ish" rather than the 1.5" I ordered. Happy to send pics to those interested. High impact will soon have a set of two of these in stock if anyone is intersted. I will post pics in another four weeks of the reversed rims when I expect to get them now

Oh well.

Way:shaking:

I've got the pics of my mates reversed disco steel rims now. who wants to post them for me? (still being a newbie i can't...:( )


Jamie

Hy Jamie

You must be mind reading I was just going to ask you about these pics when I noticed you posting in the CV prop thread. Cant help you out with a website to post them on but you could try this www.photoisland.com
its an image hosting service. From there you can get a link to post on hear to show your photos. Its not ideal but for us technophobes that havent got our own site yet it does work.

Send them to me. I will post them for you.

Way

Spa_way@hotmail.com