DIY bead lock question
 

I am thinking of putting together a set of DIY bead locks. Can you drive them on the street? Do they tend to hold air. Their is nothing to center the outer bead of the tire... Is there?. Just wondering if this is a good mod for a nubie with only a couple of trips under his belt. I already have more jeep than I need at this point with Dana 44 with 488 and air lockers, long arm kit and a 4 to 1 transfer case. I was about to get a set of fake bead lock wheels powder coated and thought may be I should do this first. By the way any one got any good deals on 15 inch DIY bead lock set up? Thanks for any help or advise

Technically, beadlock wheels are illegal to drive on the street. They are not DOT certified. That said, I have never seen or heard of anyone getting pulled over for running them. Keep in mind thought that they are not real street friendly. Welding a steel ring onto a wheel makes them much heavier and much more difficult to balance. It's just not a good idea for a street rig.

Personally, I don't think you need them. Ask yourself a couple questions. First, have you ever lost a bead while on the trail? Do you do serious crawling that requires you to air your tires down below 10 lbs? Do you air your tires down at all when you go wheeling? If the question to any of those is no, then chances are, you don't need beadlocks.

If I needed real beadlocks but wanted to drive on the street, I would get racelines, hutchinson or a Hummer double beadlock.

I would leave the DIY beadlocks to offroad only rigs or ones that you only drive occasionally.

The jeep that trigger has was supposedly street friendly until the DIY BL's were installed.

They are NOT illegal. DOT approval is for manufacturers and liability. You can run them, but you are taking on the liabilty if one fails and causes an accident. Your insurance company may choose not to cover it also since it is a "modified" component on the vehicle, most insurance companies reserve that right in the small print.

DOT approved actually means you designed and built the part in compliance with some set guidelines.

Run 'em
:beers:

depending on the type of DIY beadlock it may or may not have a way to properly center the tire. Most center around the bolts. LostValley Offroad's beadlocks have a centering ring built in. They are alot thicker than your standard beadlock is so they cuase soem balancing issues however, I had them do mine for me... was around $400 out the door to have them welded on my existing wheels and have my tires mounted with poweder coated rings.

I ran my rig out the interstate at 70-80mph on the way to many many wheeling trips with them, and I put almost 1500 on it in a single week in August with no isses or unusaul viberations. When I balanced them I put them on a spin balancer and static balanced them, then I broke the back bead down and put some bb's in each one to help keep the balance.

No matter what the DIY beadlock, there is no reason they should leack if the weld is sealed all the way around. but I always use lostvalleys becuase they weld them mount them, check them for leaks, demoutn them, reweld them and do it over and over until there are no leaks present.

its a anti-coneing ring(actually 2), made so the 2 bead lock rings(inner-outer), dont pull 2gether when you toqure the bolts, because of the gap caused by the 3/4" tire bead.....................it goes inside of the bolts and never touches the tire, they ride on the bolts.

with that being said the outer ring its self is what "centers" the tire cuz the o.d. of the outer ring sit in the same place on the tire bead that the bead would be inside the rim

I carry a can of starting fluid with me at all times because of this. Does that qualify for needing beadlocks? :confused: