| cena2020 |
July 29th, 2010 8:41 AM |
Around Here Big Knobby Tires Are Like Candy to a fat kid. We just can't get enough, and the bigger the better. Yes, we know that upgrading to bigger and bigger tires opens up a whole can of worms in the steering, stopping, and suspension departments, not to mention axles and gearing, but never mind that; we love them big rubber doughnuts. Luckily the tire market has answered everyone's wishes with bigger and bigger tires within the past few years, and we recently had the chance to throw sensibility to the wind and go test some of the biggest dot-approved tires known to the 4x4 man.
Coincidentally we found a reader with the property, test vehicle, and the same incoherent adoration for giant rubber as us, and with a few phone calls and shipping tags, we had a motley assortment of tires and wheels arriving for an all-out oversized oval orgy of off-road tire testing. Now you may be wondering what makes this experiment so special compared to all the other tire tests done over the years. The fact is that this one is only bigger because every tire involved is bigger-bigger than 43 inches, that is. Believe it or not the tire industry has grown some massive meats recently, such that there are quite a few tires in the 44-plus-inch tire size coming out to play, and we rounded up as many as we could to see how the different diameters, tread patterns, and wheel sizes worked. In the end, our testing is hardly scientific since we were literally comparing different-sized tires, however, we hope that our results will not only help you decide what treads are right for your type of wheeling, but also help you devise a plan for building your truck around the tires you choose.
Because of all the tires we tested, we also needed to round up some wheels. Since our test truggy was running rockwell axles with its giant 6-on-83/4 bolt pattern, we knew that most off-theshelf wheels wouldn't work. Levi had some old split-rim 20-inch wheels, but we also had tires in the 16.5-inch range to test. Luckily we found that usa 6x6 offers some remanufactured military hummer wheels in a 16.5-inch size with the rockwell bolt pattern. These wheels come with a new pvc plastic internal bead-lock ring that clamps the tire beads when the two-piece wheel is assembled, acting as a double bead lock.
The original eight-lug bolt pattern has been cut out and a plate welded for less offset and a rockwell bolt pattern. Also note the o-ring that is used to seal the wheel halves. Though the 16.5-inch tire and wheel sizes are slowly being phased out, there are still many available, especially in these larger sizes. The affordability of retired military hummer double bead locks in stock or these refurbished usa 6x6 editions make the 16.5 an attractive option.
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