Beadlock Abuse Test Article

Beadlock wheels are getting more attention these days than they used to. Beadlocks are useful since when the tires are aired down enough to get maximum grip on the rocks, there isn’t enough pressure left in the tire to keep it reliably on the bead. As the rig pushes the tires into rocks beside them, the tires get pushed off the bead, and you have a flat tire. As the sport of Rock crawling becomes more and more competitive, a beadlocking wheel is almost a must. Beadlocks clamp the outer tire bead between an inner and outer ring, effectively keeping the bead seated even at extreme low pressures.  

A new force to be reckoned with in the beadlock design arena is Greg Mulkey now with Allied Wheel Corporation. Greg worked for Marsh Racing Wheels (MRT) from 1981-2001. He was involved with the development of the original beadlock wheel built by Marsh. He has now taken his 20 years of beadlock experience and joined forces with Allied Wheel Corporation, one of the larger manufacturers of OEM and aftermarket wheels in the US. 

Greg  just finished building up a test set of wheels for High Impact. He wanted to see what kind of abuse they could take. I volunteered that I thought I might be able to abuse them pretty well. We got together at my place, and mounted up 4 wheels in about an hour and a half onto my (very) green 77 Bronco. And then the “two Gregs” were off to a local trail to do some "testing".  

There aren't any hard-core rock trails in the immediate area, but we figured that if you aired down too much, and drove hard in rocky terrain, the wheels would be likely to take some pretty serious hits. 

We found a rocky gully on a trail going down into Plieto Canyon. First we attempted carnage it at about 10 psi. We tried to grind the wheels into the rocks, but the trail just wasn't tough enough. We aired down to 4 psi. With the skinny Swamper 34x9.5 tires we were running, the Bronco simply flopped around on the virtually flat tires.  We shifted the Klune-V Extreme Underdrive and the 205 Transfer Case into low and crunched down the gully at a crawl, deliberately grinding the (almost flat) tires into the wheels and the wheels into the rocks. This seemed to have the desired effect: We heard some pretty nasty grinding noises, and wondered how many of the 2 spare tires we brought along were going to be needed to get home. 

We drove to the bottom, we turned around, shifted into a higher range and hammered at full throttle back up the gully, bashing all the way, bouncing and crashing into rocks.  

We managed to bash a cut into the bottom of the Ford 9" diff, causing an oil leak. Somehow, the tires and wheels survived it. The only damage was to the locking rings: The metal was somewhat gouged, and the paint was badly scratched. We could see we had been hitting them pretty hard, but no functional damage. No bending, no snapped lock bolts. The tires had not come off the bead at all, even though they were aired down almost to nothing during the run.

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? DISCUSSION?

call  Toll Free 888-316-2940  or