Champion Beadlock Wheels
By Rick Reimundez
If you’re doing serious rock crawling or other off-roading, you’ll eventually end up lowering the air pressure in your tires to get better traction on the rocks – since airing ‘em down also increases the tire’s contact patch. Beadlocks help make sure that your tire stays securely mounted on your rim with the lower air pressure .
Champion has been specializing in beadlock applications since the mid-80’s, which in addition to off-road applications also includes racing — Top Fuel and Funny Car. Their line of 4×4 wheels are made for the serious off-roader, and you can select the style of wheel you want, adding and one of three beadlock designs that go from mild to wild.
Prices vary depending on the wheel size and application (bolt pattern) you need as well as the beadlock design and style that you want. But prices run from $274 per wheel for a 15″ x 8″ wheel with a mild beadlock to $368 for a 17″ x 9″ wheel with the extreme beadlock.
In either case the beadlock is CNC machined from 6061 T-6 Aluminum plate, ensuring you get a well-built and well balanced lock. They only specialize in aluminum wheels, though, so if you want steel you’re out of luck. The prices above are for a polished beadlock, but they also offer anodized beadlocks in red, blue, black, or gold for an additional $12 per wheel.
4×4 Wheels [Champion Beadlock]
Street Prices [Google Products]
October 1st, 2007 at 4:23 pm
A note of caution on aftermarket wheels: OEMs use an SAE procedure to axially test the fatigue and failure rate of a wheel. They have special machines that load up the axle in multiple directions and cycle test them to simulate standard usage loads as well as extreme loads such as jumping a truck or getting t-boned. This ensures OEM wheels all meet a safety standard off the line.
I once worked for an off-road aftermarket company (oh, let’s just call them F**Tech), and personally had some rims tested using the SAE standard. They failed miserably. After my report, the president asked me if I had told anyone else, and then I was instructed to keep it to myself.
Don’t even get me started on the grease monkeys designing those lift kits. I’m completely out of the industry now and drive my truck stock (except for a K&N).
May 16th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Small Cnc Milling Machine
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.