Beadlock fail at SEMA causes broken leg

[roaniecowpony]

He got bucked by the Bronco...

Hard

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[KoKo]

Wear shin guards.

Lol! Luckily with the Rebound Pros there is no ring. The bolts go through the barrel of the wheel.

 

[stumblinhorse]

Not trying to “buck“ the info given(see what I did there ). But why does everyone think bead locks are not DOT approved? Because they need maintenance? Because they work as good as traditional mounted tires?

 

[DOOKEY]

I've seen bead

Not trying to “buck“ the info given(see what I did there ). But why does everyone think bead locks are not DOT approved? Because they need maintenance? Because they work as good as traditional mounted tires?

?

 

[TX_Ovrlnd]

I've seen bead

?

 

[keeperman13]

Speaking of which, I'm about to mount some 37x12.50 R17 Ridge Grapplers on my Rebound Pros tomorrow... Happy to report how that goes if anyone is interested

Absolutely interested. What color did you get?

 

[TamTam]

Over torque steel bolts into aluminum, place it under pressure, and it will fail. It has 0 to do with the quality of the beadlock and everything to do with improper installation.

Quality wheels won't drill into the aluminum wheel and hope it holds. If that exists nobody should run it under any circumstance. I agree with you 100%. That's a recipe for disaster. Even Jeep is putting inserts in their beadlock capable wheels.

I’ve already switched my Xtreme Recon Wheels out to the Icon Rebound Pro Wheels. Plus I put on 37” Nitto Ridge Grapplers. Just waiting on my Jeep to get here to put them on.

 

[Some Random Guy]

Not trying to “buck“ the info given(see what I did there ). But why does everyone think bead locks are not DOT approved? Because they need maintenance? Because they work as good as traditional mounted tires?

Oh no. . .

 

[KoKo]

Absolutely interested. What color did you get?

I got the bronze ones on a blue wrangler! The best way I can describe it is as my friend said "nice Subaru WRC Rubicon" ???

 

[Old Jeeper]

I have run BLs off and on over the years and my last set I put on 88,XXX miles . IMO IF you are a serious rock crawler you need BLs if want to play at the 7+ rated trails and you do it often.

I run Walker Evans BLs. With Grade 8

As for why that ring came off in the OP could be several reasons: Bad or poor qualty wheel with to much improper and abusive handling. Failure to replace bolts on a regular basis. OVER TORQUING the bolts/NOT using a Torque wrench. Made in China. When he went to set the bead he had already torqued down the bead, tire did not want to set and he pumped up the psi and he pumped up the psi and he pumped up the psi and it took the BL with it when it exploded. I do see an explosion might have taken place by the looks of the tire/wheel/bead lock in the FOTO.

A torque wrench is critical at times and BLs are one of them. I been using them since the 60s and at one time I worked in a Zero Defect environment and we torqued everything. What is it like to work in a ZD enviro? For one every day, you draw and turn in at the end of the day your torque wrenches. WHY? They are calibrated every single day, you have 2 sets as a result. Then there is the inspection. Well, you never work longer than about 15 min. You have a job card and it specifies which bolts, what torque, and a diagram of the location. You torque down and call an Inspector, who has his own torque wrench and inspects 100% of your work. He then calls in another inspector who inspects the workpiece at a not less than 50% and his job card will tell him which are the most critical that must be passed and then his option to inspect level 2 bolts. It was interesting work, take a break anytime you felt like it, no rush to finish. You will NEVER have a job with higher stress so they want to keep you happy and focused.

Here is how I do it:

The tire is on the wheel.

I mount the wheels and tires on the Jeep and begin to torque the Bead Ring down. Walker Evans calls for 20 ft-lbs and I use a different system to torque down than I do for removal. I start out by installing a bolt in every other hole and then I GENTLY-finger tight, snug it up. I then install the other bolts and do same.

I now watch the gap between the BR and the rim and I go around cranking each bolt down, every other one, then each one I skipped. I turn my torque wrench about 1⁄2 turn each time until I get my first click. Then I proceed to do every bolt in order until each clicks. Then I go around one more time to confirm my first click. As you can guess, it is slow and takes about 10 or so cycles to get it finally torqued down. I use this method for several reasons. Yes it's about a 2 + hr job just for the torquing of the bolts.

• 1) All of the bolts are quite close together,

• 2) Because the ring itself is much softer than the wheel one has to be careful not to distort the ring which using the criss-cross method can easily do,

• 3) This method allows a very fine yet slow torque method that ensures the bolts do not come loose.

• 4) I do this once or twice a year depending upon how much I am wheeling. Every year I replace all my bolts with gold-zinc grade 8. WHY? Corrosion and the bolt heads take a real beating in the rocks

• 5) I put my bolts in semi-dry. I use a clean white towel with a spray, NOT wet, barely damp of WD 40. NOTE I power-washed my wheels and removed minor scratches the day before, leaving my wheels in the sun to dry.

 

[roaniecowpony]

I heard that you can't purchase beadlocks in California, but if you already have them, you can keep them, but you can't transfer ownership to anyone else. Also, if you have them on your vehicle, you can only go directly to and from registered trails.

 

[txj2go]

• 5) I put my bolts in semi-dry. I use a clean white towel with a spray, NOT wet, barely damp of WD 40.

Does the manufacturer of the wheel have any recommendations on lubricant?

When trying to bolt something together we usually want the bolts to be pulling the items together a certain amount. We don't really care what the torque reading is but unfortunately we can't easily measure tension in the bolts so we measure torque. When tightening bolts a lot of the torque goes into overcoming friction, not creating tension. I've watched structural bolt tests using a Skidmore-Wilhelm machine and the bolt tension at the same torque reading can vary widely depending on the condition of the bolt and nuts and the type of lubricant. And WD40 is not much of a lubricant. If you look at the Fastenal chart someone published it has information on bolt coating and lubricant and how the clamping force (tension) will vary. In that chart there is almost a 2:1 range of clamping force depending on bolt coating and lubricant. What they don't cover is dirty rusted fasteners which will develop even less clamping force. I bring up the dirty/rusty condition because that can happen around a construction site where high strength bolts are used to make bolted connections in structural steel. Common structural bolts would be approximately grade 5, but there are some that are about equal to grade 8.

 

[00 Trans Ram]

Many folks just don’t think about correct torque techniques. many also think they don’t need a torque wrench, they have the magic feel of correct torque.
also many don’t know the reason a torque value is specified.

This, so much.

I can do 100ft/lb on a lug nut with a specific breaker bar I have. But, it's not because I have some magic feel or anything. I used to autox for more than a dozen years, with the same car (a 2000 Trans Am). That's changing tires twice per race day, around 1.5 times per month (1-2 races per month), for 12 years. 12*12*1.5*2*20=8640.

That's 8,640 times torqueing a lug nut to 100ft/lb. Yeah, I finally figured out that if I put juuust this much weight on the end of the breaker bar (basically, one foot on the ground, lift myself up until my heel was off the ground, but not my toes), that it was 100lb/ft (+/-5lbs).

Not coincidentally, I can also pretty accurately estimate when something is 50lbs, as that was the weight of each race tire/wheel combo. Lifted those things about half the number of times I did lug nuts (lifted 4x per day).

 

[roaniecowpony]

Does the manufacturer of the wheel have any recommendations on lubricant?

When trying to bolt something together we usually want the bolts to be pulling the items together a certain amount. We don't really care what the torque reading is but unfortunately we can't easily measure tension in the bolts so we measure torque. When tightening bolts a lot of the torque goes into overcoming friction, not creating tension. I've watched structural bolt tests using a Skidmore-Wilhelm machine and the bolt tension at the same torque reading can vary widely depending on the condition of the bolt and nuts and the type of lubricant. And WD40 is not much of a lubricant. If you look at the Fastenal chart someone published it has information on bolt coating and lubricant and how the clamping force (tension) will vary. In that chart there is almost a 2:1 range of clamping force depending on bolt coating and lubricant. What they don't cover is dirty rusted fasteners which will develop even less clamping force. I bring up the dirty/rusty condition because that can happen around a construction site where high strength bolts are used to make bolted connections in structural steel. Common structural bolts would be approximately grade 5, but there are some that are about equal to grade 8.

Great explanation. Many people aren't aware. Some types of bolts are simply measured for stretch. For example; my Lycoming aircraft engine rod bolts are stretch bolts. You actually measure the length of them before and after until they reach a specific stretch.

 

[txj2go]

Great explanation. Many people aren't aware. Some types of bolts are simply measured for stretch. For example; my Lycoming aircraft engine rod bolts are stretch bolts. You actually measure the length of them before and after until they reach a specific stretch.

Elongation of a bolt is a much better indicator of the tension in the bolt than the torque is. Similarly various fasteners are specified to be torqued to yield which is another way to insure that you have a certain level of tension in the bolt.

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