Project Bead Lock

I am new here, so for those of you who don't know I love to build stuff. (probably why a jeep is so good for me). I was one of those kids who took stuff apart just to see how it works. Never really got it back together, but that's another story.

Having a jeep again has been a blast getting it ready for the trails. It gives me an excuse to design & build things to help it on the trail. One of these things would be a set of beadlock wheels. I figured I would document & share the experience with my new found buds at MRR.

I have always dreamed of having some beadlocks, but could never really justify the money for them. I mean I never really did THAT much off roading. Nor did my skills warrant such a feature.

I pretty much wrote them off until I ran across this link...
http://www.rockstomper.com/catalog/wheels/beadlocks.htm

They were selling a kit to make your average wheel into a beadlock. Pretty cool, but it was $80 a kit! (one kit per wheel) $80 x 5 (with spare) is $400! Ouch! Never am I going to spend that much to make my own beadlock rims. After looking at the kit in depth I found it was nothing more than a piece of sheetmetal with some holes. Pretty cool for me because I happen to work at a place who manufactures a LOT of stuff out of sheetmetal. In fact making something like this would be perfect for our lasers.
I instantly hit up my 3D cad software and got the initial design hammered out.
I found some wheels on ebay that were being sold because of scratches in the paint. No worries because I plan to repaint them.

So, the plan. Got the deal on wheels. Laser out some beadlock rings, weld them on. Powder coat a fresh paint job and voila - beadlocks.

So far I got the wheels in and everything is going ok. I got the old paint burnt off today and should have the rings made by the end of the week. (i want to double an tripple check some measurements)

I will keep you guys posted on the progress!

Wheels new.....



Wheels after being burnt off....

i wouldent use sheetmetal i would use 3/16 or 1/4 plate

Yeah when I say sheetmetal I am sure thoughts of thin 16ga comes to mind. However our lasers cut all the way up to .50". If that can't cut it (pun intended) we also have a plasma / Oxy cutter that we regularly cut 2" on.

Although I am planning on using 1/4" (6mm actually) for the rings on these.
Good call though, and I am open to any other suggestions!

How good is your or the person welding them on for you?
Your plan sounds like a winner so far keep us up to date. Also you know that getting rims with weld on beadlocks are often not easy or able to balance. Are you planning on running then street?

If you want to make some extra money, since you already will have the machine programmed you could make some extra sets. I am sure I can talk my brother into a set, and there might be some others.

yeah I would need a set for 17's and another set for 15's

well, how often do you see people pop a bead? I saw 3 at paragon and then bought beadlocks and haven't seen anyone except kat pop a bead and she was in that mud pit being winched out.

kat at big dogs and a couple more. but most people that don't have bead locks don't air down less then 12psi.

Really since I have never hit the trail much I will be the first to tell you that I have no clue how much they are truely needed on the trail. However, I like the idea of airing down and I have only that is the situation where you start to break beads.
Normally a bead lock wheel would be last on my list, but when you have the resources, I figured why not right?

I personally do know how to weld, but I am going to turn this over to one of our more verteran welders. They have to be air tight, and I want them to be clean. I have production welded for a while in my past, but I still don't do it enough now where I feel comfortable doing it myself.

To answer the question on balancing, these would be mostly trail wheels although they would be on the vehicle to and from the trail as well. I have done a bit of research and found that many beadlock "kits" like what I am making do not do a good job of centering the tire to the wheel. Obviously if this happens you are never going to get the tire balanced. Again though, I can not speak from experience so I will just have to see what happens. However I have designed a piece to help center the tire among other things. Maybe tomorrow I can post an exploded view of what I am thinking to get some feedback. I should also have the first ring done to test fit it on the wheel.

As for making money I am sort of torn on this one. I have had a side busines before dealing with the aftermarket and it didn't go so well. Bottom line is this is something I love to do, but I am not a salesman. I can't sell something I don't believe in. Before it was more retail than custom fabrication, so maby it would be different this time. Who knows. I do know at this time I am not looking to make any cash off this.
If I did decide to try and make something out of it I would try to do it legit. In otherwords pay a company to make them for me. As it stands right now I get to mix these in with our regular production runs. Doable, but on a small scale.
That being said, I am MORE than willing to help people out but it has to be within reason. I can't make something for you and 100 of your closest friends, but I could probably get something done for you alone.

Thanks for the feedback, I will keep everyone posted!

rockdw72 wrote:

kat at big dogs and a couple more. but most people that don't have bead locks don't air down less then 12psi.

saw a buggy at BD throw a bead but with 8" rims 12" wide tires and 8 to 10 psi I never lost a bead. and belive it or not with them flat it was still hell to break the bead to get them off. For the beadlocks if you could make a extra sample when your making yours I would buy that off you.

I blew a bead when I bent the rim if that counts... I run 8" wheels and 12.5 tire at 8 - 10 psi and have not had a issue.

Oops that was not true... Once in Rock Creek but I blew out the hub on the D35 at the same time.

I have the Stazworks beadlocks and they work well. they use a 2 piece wheel that bolts together and pinches a ring in the tire between the beads. Also uses a rubber seal between the 2 piece wheel asssembly to seal it up. I love haw they work and run 6-8 pounds but they are very heavy. I think I weighed them in at 125# with 36" bias IROKs. Way heavy compared to the 37" Trxus on aluminum rims. You can feel a difference in power too. the the alum rims the tires will spin but with the beadlocks forget it.

Rockn93YJ wrote:

I have the Stazworks beadlocks and they work well. they use a 2 piece wheel that bolts together and pinches a ring in the tire between the beads. Also uses a rubber seal between the 2 piece wheel asssembly to seal it up. I love haw they work and run 6-8 pounds but they are very heavy. I think I weighed them in at 125# with 36" bias IROKs. Way heavy compared to the 37" Trxus on aluminum rims. You can feel a difference in power too. the the alum rims the tires will spin but with the beadlocks forget it.

I agree, if I were to do it again I would get aluminum rims and get stauns. in a 17" flavor instead of 16". all the good tires only fit 17's.

Well, got a lower ring lasered today to test the fit. I am pretty pleased. It fell right into place with no wiggle room. I am surprised really. I usually manage to mess something up, but I guess there is still time.



I also like the seam that will get welded. A bit of a gap there to fill, so this should help ensure a well fused weld with no leaks.



I figured I would throw this out there for some feedback. An exploded view of what I am thinking. The key thing being the spacer. (Only 1 of 4 is being shown)



The idea behind having this spacer is 2 fold. I want it to assist in centering the tire to the wheel for one. The other is to allow the upper ring to remain flat after being tightened down. I have seen in similar setups the upper ring will twist causing the bolt heads to sit on an uneven surface. This can effect how well the bolts remain tight and can cause them to break over time. I will have to find the right thickness so that it matches the thickness of the bead clamped down.

Anyone have any guesses as to how thick their bead is? Compressed or uncompressed.

I like the spacer idea. I have seen it done different, but I like this way better. keep up the good work.

turned out good.

Well, I finally got a chance to work on the beadlocks again. After more research I stepped it up to (25) 3/8-16 bolts. Before I had only (20) 1/4-20 bolts. I ran several test parts to be sure everything was how I wanted it. Because once they are welded in, there is no turning back.
Today was a big day though. Today they got welded together. I was a bit worried about who I was going to have weld them. Oviously it had to be someone good, but even then, if they mess up I didn't want to have to hate them forever.
So one day it clicked that we have several robotic welders that would weld a nearly perfect weld all the way around with no problem. The only issue is I don't really have any test pieces to test weld parameters on. It is either all or nothing. So I got with a buddy of mine at work who is really good at programming the robots and asked if this was something that could be done. He confirmed that the robot could esily do it, but being that it is such a small weld it might not be all that pretty. In the end we both felt that doing it robotically was better than having it done by hand.
We got a few scap parts together to get the weld parameters set. I put some small tacks to hold the ring to the wheel and hoped for the best.

I think they turned out great. I like the fact that it was done as one continuous weld. No starting & stopping or tie-ins to worry about leaking.

Getting the robot programmed......



Welding.....



The results.....

damn looking good, you mind if I borrow that robot for a few days

md4wheelin wrote:

you mind if I borrow that robot for a few days

Tell me about it. I might have to rethink some of the projects I want to do and see if I they would be good for the robot or not. I work with them all day long and never thought to consider them.

If there is something you need fabbed up I can see what I can do. I will say I am probably not going to be doing another set of bead locks. It was a bigger undertaking than I expected.