Wahoo! The sample will be done and sent out today!!

After hearing everyone's input, it made sense that the lock ring would get beat up. Polished was the clear choice. (Cheaper by $12 ea too).

Now, the question remains about the wheel. Do I go polish it and deal with the oxidation every winter, or do I PC them silver/grey/black and call it a day. I guess I'll need to revise the poll...

I'm going to get it mounted up with a tire and take pics first.

 

I'd go silver PC to keep the maintenance down, then start assembling pieces for the SAS.....Glad to hear you kept the ring non-colored, sounded kind of ricey to me.

 

Wachoo talkin' bout? IFS rules!

 

.....Anywho, why are you going with the beadlocks? Have you been losing the beads on the stock rim

 

I sold my MT Classic II's with 33's and wanted to do something a little different. I never aired them down far enough to lose a bead - I was chicken to go too low because my spare is seized under the rig. That's one of the many things that will get solved while the Runner is out of service...

I wanted to use the stock alloys since I had them and gain some width so I could run a bigger tire - beadlocks were also on my list of "must haves" eventually...

 

BTW - After lots of thought, I ended up ordering up another BFG MT. 35 this time though...

 

I voted black wheel-blue beadlocks but now that i gave it some thought, polished beadlocks do make more sense and look just as sweet. Id still keep the wheel color black though...

 

 

Sweet. So what are you gonna do about the tires. I still think that black pc with a polished ring would look sick, especially wrapped in those 35s.

Don't forget to post pics.

 

By the way, and I'm sure you know this, if you get them pc'd, they'll be all torn up after the first time you take them off-road ... and the bad thing about that is not just that it'll show through, but that the scratched up paint part will be sharp.

 

I'll have the lock rings for protection. I've decided I don't want the maintenance of polishing wheels. I'm thinking maybe the color of brake dust...

 

UPS came today!!

It appears that these are not much more than 3/4" wider (where the bead sits that is...)than the stock wheel. Looks like I'll be rotating tires often. I'm considering running a 1/4 spacer possibly....bah, I dunno.

I'm not going to mount one up until I figure out what i want to do with the wheel color. I think black is tooo dark and you won't be able to even tell this thing is a Toy wheel. Maybe a medium gray metallic for a contrast, but not too dark?

How about some pics...















It appears that they machine off the outside lip completely and weld on their stuff.

 

Yep, that's how my Champions were made, they preserve the existing width of the wheel, at least that was the case with my 15x8s. They are a good beadlock design, though. The inner lip on the rim helps center the tire. Many bead locks lack that inner lip and that makes it very hard to mount the tires and have them balance up properly.

 

Those look real nice. I still like black, I'de have to see pics of other colors to change my mind. The fact that no one will be able to tell that they are Toy wheels just adds interest to intrigue. People would be like, "What kind of wheels are those?" so you'd say "Stock!" Then they'd get closer and be like, "Dude! Those are the coolest rims I've ever seen." And you'de be standing there all proud saying, "I know, that's why they are mine!!!"

Just a thought.

 

OK, polished ring is a given - although I may go for a standard ring as oppposed to the C3. I thought the C3 would look good symmetrically with the 4 spoke design of these alloys. I dunno - seems to cover up too much possibly?

I painted some of the wheels I had not sent out to Champion yet.

One color is Duplicolor "High Performance Wheel paint" - in charcoal. It leaves almost a wrinkle finish - probably should be clearcoated for a final finish.



This is a half assed effort at polishing them (the beadlocked one). I followed this polishing writeup.

http://home.off-road.com/~kemanuel/S...l/SR5Wheel.htm

No heckling - this took a few hours as it is...



Then I tried a black color I use for all sorts of stuff. SEM Trim Black. Not sure how durable it is for a wheel paint, but I use it because the sheen is right and it always dries nicely. It is the best black paint for misc stuff out there IMO.



Following are a few shots of all 3 versions together. The 2nd pic below shows the charcoal paint closest to reality.







I believe duplicolor makes a black wheel paint that is probably more durable than the SEM trim black. I'm leaning that way. There was a bright silver available. I might try that one for poops and giggles...

Anyone have an opinion on the colors?

 

You know, everybody has black. I can't really tell if the middle one is like this, but how about something dark grey, like the teflon wheels. I don't even know if they make a paint the color of teflon.

Oh yeah, nice bling.

 

Found this a little late, but I love the black.

 

Roger - I talked to Milan today at Champion about using button head bolts (like yours). He told me he didn't recommend them because they don't have adequate tensile strength (?) I'm curious what strength bolts you used. I thought they only had to get torqued to 15 ft lbs or so, right? I bought stainless button heads that look like yours. (Not sure if yours are stainless). I got 18-8 stainless with a tensile strength of 85,000 psi. I could have gotten 316 stainless that brings it up to 120,000 psi, but I thought 85,000 would be way more than adequate. Think it's a CYA on their part?

 

Mike...sounds like a cya to me...or a sales pitch to buy his bolts. I've been doing a ton of beadlock research for fabbing my own and Rockstomper uses all kinds of bolts...countersunk flat heads, button head, hex head...tensile strength is a material property and treatment, not head type. Did he tell you what tensile strength he recommended? If not, he was blowing smoke up your skirt IMO.

Keep us posted on what you decide.

 

Now that you mention it, I didn't even tell him what material I was planning to use, just told him button head socket. (I did know about the tensile str. relating to the material and not the head)

He must have been blowing smoke! Well son of a......