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Faunsdale, AL | Talk.
Multi piece rims are inherently more dangerous than single piece.
However, the rims that have created the dread of owning anything but one piece tubeless drop center rims are the Firestone RH-5 design split RIMS most commonly found on 2 ton/medium duty? trucks and buses with 20” wheels. On those, the joint between the two rim halves is not visible with the wheel assembled and is a good place for corrosion to be occurring. The parts that keep the two halves of the rim together depend on being deformed into an oval to get the lips or ledges of the two parts to disengage. This means that on about 1/2 of the circumference of that joint the lips will be cut back so they cannot ever engage the full depth of the notch in the opposite half of the rim. Add in some rust taking the edges of the mating parts down a little and they can and do come apart.
On split LOCK RING rims, the fit and condition of the parts is visible with the tire on and you can monitor it as the tire bead moves outward trapping the ring and compressing it into its groove.
There are some rims out there with a lock RING that’s not split and those I am very cautious of. They’re a bit like the split RIM design, you have to force the ring into an oval shape to get the lips that hold onto the rim to disengage. Once you get the ring off you’ll see that the lip or ledge that retains the ring isn’t continuous all the way around the ring. It’s shallow on two sides so it’s possible to force it into an oval and get it to come off. I’ve had one of those fly off before. It was obvious it was loose on the rim base but I needed the wheel to put on a wagon, so I pointed the lock ring side out across the driveway and aired it up from a distance. Probably good it came loose as air pressure was building in the tire.
A split LOCK RING design allows the lip or ledge inside the ring that grips in the notch of the rim base to be full size all the way around the ring. No oval, no shallow ledge or lip, it’s able to engage the notch in the rim all the way around full depth. And, as the tire bead moves outward, the ring gets wedged in so it cannot expand to slip out of the groove it’s gripping on the rim base. If those parts are inspected for serious corrosion before reassembly and defective parts discarded, they are very safe.
Edited by ccjersey 8/27/2023 10:51
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Tires
