DIY insert double beadlocks

[Logjam-grant]

I made a home made double beadlock by using two rock stomper style clamps, but that takes a lot of material. I origionally wanted to do a double beadlock using an insert like Staz Works. In order to do that I needed a bead seat and the rim blanks were $150 a piece. The tires needed a 24" rim. This project will use 16" rims so a stock rim can be cut up for parts. I ended up making everything but the lug nut center portion myself on the 24" rims.

I was talking to Gus today and worked out a few of the design issues myself. Once I actually drew up the rim in CAD, I'm not sure they were really issues anyway...

One of the issues I had was using a tube with an insert style double beadlock. Take a look at the rim below. The insert would be unsupported over the drop center part of the rim. This might be a problem with a 6" rim, but with a widened rim there may be enough support. Take a look at both pictures and tell me what you think.

If its a problem I drafted in a blue piece to level it out.

This drawing below was moldeled after a 15" rim. I don't have any 16" rims free. They should be pretty close. Even though this drawing is accurate, its only to show the problem.

The blue part is .050", and the green is .3" (just for scale).



Here is the same drawing, but 7" wider. This would be a 13" wide rim:



My feeling is that I won't have a problem with the tube pusing on the unsupported part of the insert. The insert is "floating" in that picture because I didn't want it covering the other colors.

For the actual insert I thought about a piece of plastic from Alaska Rubber. So I messed with it.

Here is the plastic next to a 1/2" socket. The piece I have measures .248" thick. They sell it thicker.



Here is a bend I did by heating the surface of the plastic with a propane torch. It bent pretty easily.



Here is a bend I did by folding it real hard.



So the bands can be made by heating the rubber around a form (did I hear weed burner???) or by using a metal rolling machine (what ever they are called). I tried heating a pipe and rolling it over the pipe, but I got bored so I just heated the plastic directly. Once I made the bend it flet like a wet noodle. So then bent the other end with my hands. As I was walking inside I noticed that the heated bend was still too hot to hold...so I decided to wait until it cooled to make any more observations.

The bend made by heating appears to be as strong as the bend made by bending. If anything, the heat caused the plastic to get harder...which may or may not be a bad thing.

The cost to single bead lock the outside is more than the cost to put a flange on the rim (2 shells). The rim has to be widened either way. Plastic shouln't be more than $20 per rim and it cuts nicely with a skill/table saw.

Anyway, any thoughts? I don't know what the plastic cost would be, so thats still a deciding factor.

[braxton357]

No offense...but why? You spent all of the time/money/resources on building that other set of double beadlocks...why make another one? Why not spend the time building something useful?

[Logjam-grant]

I'm pretty sure a big sheet will be cheap. Might even be cheap enough to step up to some real thick stuff to make the worry non-existent. Like .5" thick.

I don't want to be accused of teasing...here is a short picture post about the 24" clamp double beadlock:

[JonsYJjeep]

I guess i would have too see it in person. Are you basically building your own rim?

[Urban Wheeler]

Abandon the Scout project? I would have liked to see that done.

[Logjam-grant]

The set of beadlocks with the big tractor tires were 24" rims. These new ones are 16" rims. I'm helping a guy make a new set of rims, so its either a single outer lock or experiment with the double.

No comments on the plan?

[Advent Horizon]

How are you getting the plastic to seal into a circle?

[Todd W]

Curious, why did you gusset the hell out of that rim pictured?
DId you have one fail?

[Jamus2]

Originally Posted by Advent Horizon

How are you getting the plastic to seal into a circle?

I could be wrong but I don't think they need to seal, just connect. All they do is take up space and keep the bead from slipping off right? I changed many in the Army, both HMMWV and 5-tons and they had insert/runflats, that were either 2-piece and bolted together, or single piece and bolted together in one spot. Seems like if he gets the curves pretty good, some steel plates and bolts is all you'd need to hold them together. Some of the Army 5-tons with double beadlocks run a piece of sheetmetal with weatherstripping stuff where it contacts the backside of the tire bead. Made into a big "C" shape and bolting together to close the loop.

[bigun]

Originally Posted by braxton357

No offense...but why? You spent all of the time/money/resources on building that other set of double beadlocks...why make another one? Why not spend the time building something useful?

Grant wheels in Alaska he very rarly buys when he can build for himself. Part of the reason is the high cost of shipping and from reading his stuff he likes the challenge..
For more of his stuff check out
http://www.alaska4x4network.com/

Originally Posted by Todd W

Curious, why did you gusset the hell out of that rim pictured?
DId you have one fail?

If you read any of the trail articles in the above link you find out that what starts off as a simply two hr trip turns into a 3 day Life or death situation in a hurry in the bush of Alaska. Therefore you try to make every thing as bulit proof as possiable.

[Logjam-grant]

Change of plans...I'm no longer going to use anything from the stock rim but the center, and the two bead seats...

The build begins...

Gus let me borrow his rim machine. The center hub was big. The right size for dodge and ford rims, but not chevy rims. So I turned it down on a lathe.



I couldn't find anything metal to bolt it to, so I got a wooden thing I found. Only 2 bolts holding it on. The two front ones wouldn't see anything anyway.



There are three black arrows. Sunday morning I'm going to cut the outer bead off, then the inner bead, then cut the center. I already have one drum. Should be interesting!

Here is a ghetto picture of the cut lines. Hopefully the rim machine does a better job. :grin:

[Logjam-grant]

Cool progress!

Gus gave me his vice and an air drill. The only problem is that the air drill uses WAY too much air if I want to use the plasma cutter at the same time. Plus, I don't need slow speeds for the plasma cutter. He supplied a pulley mounted on a 1/2" shaft, but my hand drills were 3/8. I didn't feel like working with a hole hog....so I found a reduced shank 1/2" drill bit, put the pulley on, and tightened the set screw. Perfect!



Things like that add to the low tech DIY approach. The vice is vice gripped to the wooden thing that I found.

I managed to integrate even my camera tripod into the setup...



So there is the setup. I used a long belt because the drill and the rim machine pulleys are not parallel. Long belts care less. The tension on the belt didn't need to be too high because of how easy the rim machine turns. There is probably 5:1 reduction in the rim machine.

[Logjam-grant]

The idea here is that all the smoke from paint and plasma gets sucked into the stove pipe. Hopefully the hot metal pieces go otu the bottom of the T and the smoke goes into the plastic hose.

Next you may wonder how I clamp a ground to the rim when it needs to turn. Well, I turn the drill on and set the trigger lock. Then just hold the wire wheel on the rim for a few revs. Using a length of 12ga copper wire looped around the rims drop center will provide the ground. The weight of the ground clamp keeps pressure on it. Effectively we have 2 12ga wires that need to take 50-60A at 110v. Will be fine for short periods.



Since I took apart my plasma cutter to interface it with the computer, pressing the "home" key on the keyboard turns the torch on. Pressing it again makes it turn off. So these are the events required to cut the rim:

-Turn on drill and set the trigger lock
-press home key on keyboard
-catch rim piece as it falls off
-press home key on keyboard
-Turn off drill



I was frightened to see the stove pipe start to glow from the shower of metal. It looked pretty crazy in person since the zinc was sparkling and glowing like a sparkler. Other than that it went great...except for the part where I was too busy taking pictures and the piece I was cutting fell on to the torch and tripod!



Poor cheap plastic camera tripod, oh, the pipe doesn't look the same either...



Nice cut quality, eh?

Back to do more...

[Todd W]

Very nice redneck enginered setup

[TONY K]

Fawking bad ass !!!

carry on ......

[BillaVista]

Grant,

easily some of the very coolest stuff I've seen on this BB. Well done!! Right up there with that fella that made a plasma cutter (or was it a laser weapon?) with some hair dryers.

Way cool.

[Logjam-grant]

The hair dryers...that was me. Well, someone else made some sort of flame throwing stick. I made a plasma cutter using hair dryers. They're actually 10 ohm air cooled resistors for the pilot arc!

So, do you have to be redneck without knowing it to win that redneck steering ram?

[Logjam-grant]

Wanna run some motorcycle tires on the 8 lug?



Now imagine a flange with the center welded to it and the other half of the drum welded to just a flange. Kind of like a hummer bead lock or those staz works?



Some glory shots. All these are available in full resolution if you need a desktop pattern. I like the sparks and fire more than anything else!

[Logjam-grant]

In the picture above you can see a new red spot forming form the sparks. Look in the top of the pipe...





Okay, I promose no more pictures of sparks... I should have 3 more drums rolled by the middle of the week. The UHMW bands will be made out of old air boat skid material. If I had to buy it, a 5x10 sheet of 1/2" is something like $290.

Some tech? The rums need to be 15 3/8".

For those without a fancy rim machine, a trailer spindle holding the rim and a real big belt just rubbing on the dropped center should work JUST FINE. Might need more belt tension, probably not. There is no rubbing of any parts...

[kwrangln]

Pure evil genius, completely brilliant.

We need more, keep the pics coming.

[Logjam-grant]

I got the 3 final drums last night. They fit the bead seats perfectly.

Advice on cutting the bead seats off a stock rim... The safety bead on the inside of a 16" rim (the part of the rim facing in on a vehicle) has a hump on the rim and its easy to find the end of. The safety bead on the outside of the rim is right before the drop center. So the safety bead comes up and then goes all the way down into the drop center part of the rim.

So, what I've found works good is to find the safety bead and cut through the very last part.

This was a big stress point for me. I didn't want to end up with rings all being different diameters. At least the safety beads should be close in size.

Once I cut up all my rims I'll start on cutting the two flanges.

I plan on
-place the drum on the floor and use blocks to locate the center flange in the drum. Just tack welding.
-mount the rim center to a spindle, put drum with center flange on and adjust for runout and balance. Tack weld...
-put back on rim machine, fit the inside bead seat on the drum and check with dial indicator...tack weld
-cut off the outside part of the drum
-weld second flange to the cut off drum piece
-bolt back on the other drum half on the rim machine
-fit the outer bead seat and adjust for runout

-Act like a robot and weld it up. With the machine rotating at about 15 inches per minute it should only take 3 minutes per weld. Too bad there are 4 welds on the rim!

This will be a good test of my modified Millermatic 135. I bet I could push 15 minutes running full power and not exceed the duty cycle. An also modified Napa battery charger is involved.

[Logjam-grant]

Scraps for 4 rims. The ground isn't wet by the hose. That's fine metal dust...concentrated.





Here is a good picture that shows how everything is setup:



Now that all 4 rims are done the welding begins. Actually, I have to cut 3 24" rim centers for gus, then cut a bunch of flanges for these rims, and then I can weld.

I think I'm going to do all the welds with some Esab DualShield II 70 Ultra. Should make it easy to automate.

[Logjam-grant]

First I had to finish cutting 24" centers for a friend. That's a 4x4 sheet!



The beadlock rings for the 16" rims will be about 15.3" diameter. I used a 16" diameter circle to plan out each plate. These traingular plates are left overs from tank heads. Fuel tanks, poop tanks, all kinds of tanks!





Talk about cutting it close!

[Logjam-grant]

Leftovers... plenty of gussets in this sheet!



Cutting 3 more...



Scraps from that sheet, hot off the press! Look at the steam!



This is way too much offset, but it shows how things are working out...



The wheel center will actually be welded to the outer drum half instead of the inner. The stock rim centers are just too big. The 1/4" flanges fit perfect in the drums rolled by Greer Tank.



Took 3.5 hours to handle material, make the cad drawing, and cut the pieces. I've got one more to do...

It helps to have a CNC plasma table...also home made in this case.

[Logjam-grant]

Now for sparks!