HMMWV double beadlocks wheels on a Ford Superduty

[EMS WJ 2000]

chaos616 nice rig and nice call on the adapters.

Wish I could run them on my 2006 Dodge Ram, minimum is a 17" wheel and bead locks for that size are expensive.

I can find HMMWV bead locks all day long here in North Carolina.

 

[KERRDOG]

Subscribed!

 

[chaos616]

gmacmt, yeah they are from the website wheeladapter.com. I chose these because i liked their construction. These are fully steel milled unites, they are lug centered (beveled nuts) and hub centered units. They center on the stock hubs which i had to measure and they center the H1 rims too. the patterns are both 8x6.5 due to the gm nature of both rims, however i believe when i swapped to the old style front kinkpin the hub lugs were 9/16 and the rear was the stock m14. I had all the outside part of the adapter (where the wheels attach) lugged to m14 for everything. It all worked out really well and everything is real snug and good to go. The fronts are 1 1/4 width and the rear are 2 1/2 width, i did this cause my front axle is wider by a bit than the front. If i had recentered, i would have either been super wide out front or have had to get different backspaced re-centered wheels, so the spacers were a good option.

I also have a set of aluminum spacers that are not hub centered with the same pattern which i need to sell. The aluminum ones were around 450, and then i decided to go with the steel ones for around 1000, so they were not cheap. I did my research on the spacers and almost everyone who has said they are bad, has no evidence of them actually failing. I've seen more instances of unit bearings failing on trucks by far than wheels spacers. I guess to each their own when it comes to these and what they think the safety factor is, you need to decide whether you feel good about them or not.

EMS WJ 2000, thanks!, yes that is an issue now a days, when i swapped from the stock to the SAS, the brakes went from 3/4 ton to 1 ton or bigger with huge calipers, so even my stock 16" wheels fit, but there was maybe 1/16 of an inch space, the 16.5 wheels gave me some leeway in that department. Anymore, theyre running such big brakes etc, that you need 18 or bigger wheels just to fit it all. Gone are the days of 15" rims and big tires for sure.

Cheers,

 

[EMS WJ 2000]

Are you running the rubber or magnesium run flats?

 

[chaos616]

Hey EMS, i'm running PVC centers, they are the ones trailworthy fab sells, not the lightened ones with the holes but the full one. That way i don't have to worry about air down.

Cheers,

 

[wrightracing.net]

I have had the 24 bolt beadlocks on my 1999 F350 with the Military Beadlocks and I had them recentered with the 8x170mm lug patern.

They were balanced with weights epoxied to the inside of the rim. They are back spaced 3.5" which worked pretty good except for a full lock at right or left. The tire rubs on the inner plastic fender wall. I have a 6" lift on the truck. I am planning on bolting the inner fender back to the fire wall and that should fix the issue. It only hits when I am at full lock and if I hit a bump at the same time.

I am running military 37x12.50x16.5 BFG Baja TA's and so far after several months on them, I love them. They work great on the freeway at 85 mph and even in the rain on the street. I had the rims built by Alpha Tread in Tucson AZ. They are heavy, but these are big boy toys so put your big boy pants on and man up. They are not that bad, and I had to put the spare up on the swing away tire holder.

As for a half ton or smaller vehicles, I would run them on a rock crawler but not a long travel go fast vehicle.
I would love to run them on my Bronco but the weight is to much for the front end components.
I wish Hutchinson made the rock monster aluminum double beadlock in 16.5x8 with 5 on 5.5 lug pattern.

Sent from my SM-T900 using Tapatalk

 

[Bella PSD]

Just an update. I have about 45,000 miles now on these BFG Baja's. Maybe about 10K left at most. Not going to see next winter with these tires. SO by late fall I should be at 50K miles, not to bad.
Louie

 

[EXP-T100]

Just an update. I have about 45,000 miles now on these BFG Baja's. Maybe about 10K left at most. Not going to see next winter with these tires. SO by late fall I should be at 50K miles, not to bad.
Louie

Hey Louie do you think you will buy them again come this fall?


Josh

 

[Bella PSD]

I think so. As long as I can pick them up at a good price. Maybe try the Goodyear Dura-Wall MTR this time. Although the BFG Baja have been fine.

 

[Bella PSD]

Louie has been experiencing some wheel balance issues that was our fault. Originally we started making wheels a specific way that allowed our welders to install wheel shells incorrectly. We have had a couple wheels that were welded improperly and Louie has an early set of wheels that required some warranty work and we were happy to work with him to fix the problem.

Louie contacted me awhile ago and we replaced the wheel shell he was having problems with. Now we have to get it mounted up and figure out some tire balance issues. TrailWorthyFab is dedicated to our customers. I believe that our customers are what make us successful. I'm not going to lie and say we have never had problems, because we have in the past. The best we know to do is make it right. We try to learn from our mistakes and that's what helps us grow. We have taken the correct steps to insure that our future customers do not have the same problems.

Louie, Your pics are amazing and I really appreciate you taking the time to post them up. I'm thankful you have been willing to work with us and have allowed us to make it right with you. I'm always a phone call away and I'm here to help anybody with any questions you may have.

Thanks,
Andy
TWF = 316.337.5311

UPDATE on the balance issues.

I originally had a bad set of double bed lock wheels from Trail Worthy Fab as Andy mentioned above. Spent over $130 and countless hours rotating the tires on the rim 180 degrees and balancing to NO avail. TWF replaced the bad wheels with a new set and sent them out to me. Believe it or not I finally got all four new wheels installed. Plus a (5th) spare almost ready to go together. This has happen over a pretty long period of time (3+years).

With the last of the new replacement wheels finally installed along with a new driveshaft, Dynatrac Free-Spin kit and Dynatrac ball joints I thought I was good to go. NOT so quick, still having shakes at 40-50 MPH and then again bad at 75mph. From 50-65 or so it's an improvement from the old bad TWF wheels that were welded up incorrectly BUT still have something going on with the new ones.

Now enter MORE money. Now keep in mind I have already sunk $2,350 into the double bed lock wheels and 37” BFG’s, $3,600 for all the Dana 60 front axel parts from Dynatrac and Hawk brakes with Cryogenically Treated Brake Rotors. Now with the last two rear replacement double bead lock wheels going on I went ahead and got Centramatic wheel balancers. http://www.centramatic.com/balancers.rhtml

Not bad at $213 shipped. Especially with the claims and reviews I have read online. But still having the shakes at 40-50 MPH and then again bad at 75mph.

I’m going to check the NEW rims for lateral out of round (read bad wheels again??) and see how they are.

Just an FYI for anyone following.

Wheel and BFG all soaped up. About to get the bead in just the right spot before I tighten down the bead lock ring

 

[Bella PSD]

Another quick update on the balancing issues. I have now replaced all 4 beadlock rims with new beadlock rims. The other update is I found that one of the rims that was welded up wrong flat spotted the best BFG I had. This rim was the first one TWF said was good and a replacement. So a replacement for a replacement is bad.

The in-out of the rim was off .069" and the up down (hop) was about the same. As seen on the tire below, the chalk shows were the tire is wobbling out and no chalk is wobbling in. The XX on the lugs shows the flat spots line up with the in out wobbling transition. The wobbling rim caused the tire to kinda give and scuff that spot more on each rotation wearing it down premature.

X
X
Good tread right before the flat spot and before the wobble goes from in to out

Now flat spot from the the wobble right at the the transition. Tire is junk now

X
X
And a video of the rim spinning without a tire. Shows just how off it is.
LINK TO VIDEO
[video]http://bellaphotographics.com/FordSuperDutyImages/IMG_2822.m4v[/video]

 

[Bella PSD]

Now there is some good news in all of this. REMOVING that last rim that was off and wobbling the tire and flat spotting it made a big difference. The 40-50 hop is gone for the most part and pretty smooth up to 65-69mph. Around 72 and up it picks up a vibration thats not so good.

Where I was a few days ago compared to now is night to day. Its good enough I’ll drive the truck down to Louisville for a shoot tomorrow, about 300 miles round trip. I’ll report back from Louisville….

 

[Jrgunn5150]

Now there is some good news in all of this. REMOVING that last rim that was off and wobbling the tire and flat spotting it made a big difference. The 40-50 hop is gone for the most part and pretty smooth up to 65-69mph. Around 72 and up it picks up a vibration thats not so good.

Where I was a few days ago compared to now is night to day. Its good enough I'll drive the truck down to Louisville for a shoot tomorrow, about 300 miles round trip. I'll report back from Louisville….

Wow, sorry for all your troubles, but thank you for sharing! I'll definitely weld my own center's after seeing this.

I do have a question regarding the tires themselves, from your location and mileage, I'm guessing you've seen some snow with these? I'm in West Michigan, and we get pretty heavy snowfalls (12+ inches), as well as the normal ice and hard packed snow cover winter bring's. How do these tires handle those conditions? Considering there isn't any snow in Baja lol.

 

[Bella PSD]

I don't think Centermatic balancers are going to fix this. All 4 on the truck are like this. All NINE that I have are like this. The one in the video is one of the better ones.

 

[Dookey]

Well damn. After how many years you'd wish a problem could just get fixed.

Louie- I got your email. I will be in contact tomorrow as I'd like to have one of my wheels back(the worst in your opinion) so I can look at it myself. I'd also like to go back over my emails as I was assured this problem was taken care of. Now 6 years later I'm learning that you still state you have problems. You can bet that TWF is not the same company it was 6 years ago. I will have the spec sheet on your wheels and will be able to understand better today how your wheels went out the door and how they exist today once I get them back.

I'll be sure to post my findings here so people can understand the greater picture.

Thanks,
Andy