They tell you in the marketing that the split rims make tire mounting easy.  They sort of don’t say anything about tire CHANGING!  What they don’t tell you is it’s a REAL PAIN to get the old tires off the rims.

We have a bead breaker here for the race car tires that we modified to use on the cart wheels.  That works pretty well.

If you want to ship them down UPS, I’ll press them off for you.

We have talked about making up some rings to be able to press them off with the hydraulic press, but nobody has taken the time yet to bend and weld them up.

Looking at your photos, it appears this thing had knobby tires on it.  Going through the Azusa knobby tire list, I find these;

145-70x6  part #1222  list price $30.95          tube # 7140     list price $13.50

18-950x8  part #1228  list price $83.95          tube # 7120     list price $19.25

THOSE ARE SOME EXPESIVE TIRES!  Even with the discount!

Plus that is not a good tread design for what we are doing.  Remember, we don’t have any power to push us through the corners and we aren’t running on dirt, so we don’t need the traction.

A lot of us are running a ribbed tire with a flat profile, or a ribbed tire with a round profile.  They seem to work very well.

We started out running on Harbor Freight wheels and tires.  The 6 inch rears cost us about $10 or $12.  That was a wheel with a tire and tube mounted on it!  They worked pretty well when everyone was running on the same package.  But as soon as somebody used something better, they were WAY faster then the rest of us!

The first problem we had with those was we found the tires are NOT round.  And the more we ran them, the worse they got.  After running about 6 races, they were like riding on cinder blocks.  And in some cases, with our scrub brakes, they would be so out of round, they hit the brakes pads as they rotated.

The second problem was the bearings aren’t made for high speed use.  Most of these held up for a while, but they just didn’t roll so well.  Remember, this stuff was all made for walking speeds.

So, we have changed all the bearings in those wheels to a better bearing.  The bearings cost about $2 each. 

And, we have changed out most of those tires as they got bad.  We have a few carts running those Harbor Freight wheels with good bearings and the 13-500x6 ribbed tire with flat profile, tire #7018-2 list price $26.50ea.  This makes a pretty good package for a standard 5/8 axle.

I recently made up the jigs and fixtures to be able to mount the 5" Azusa drum brake to that wheel as well.  We havn't tried it yet, but one wheel is done and ready to be mounted and I just need to drill a second one and mount them up.
 

So basically at this point, we buy the $12 harbor freight package and then throw the tire and bearings away and just use the wheel.  They work just fine, go fast and cost less then a $35-$55 aluminum wheel.

With the MISFITS parts discount, that wheel/tire package costs us a total of about $35.

That might be something for you to think about if the cost is getting away with that rear axle set up you have now.

The cheapest tires seem to be the round profile tires.  And they work very well for what we are doing because they have the smallest contact patch with the road and therefore maybe the lowest rolling resistance.

They look like wheel barrow tires, but all the Azusa tires are good quality, high speed tires.  That makes a real difference!
 

For your fronts, you could use the 13-400x6  (13”O.D.x 4” wide) #7011-2 list $14.95ea.

On the rear, you have a few different choices in the round profile for your 8 inch wheels;

14-300x8 (14”O.D.x3”wide)              #7008-2           list $17.25

410/350x8 (15.3”O.D.x3.2”wide)      #7003-2           list $11.75

480/400x8 (16.3”O.D.x4.6”wide        #7012              list $14.95

And back to your rear axle.  That axle set up works, but there are many draw backs for what we are doing. 

The first is that it is designed to have power going to it.  That works very well on a go- kart and allows you to mount your bearings and brakes right to the axle along with the drive sprocket.

But in your case, I think you will need a new axle.  I doubt if the one you have can be straightened.

And then, you are probably going to have to replace the bearings and the hangers.  A lot of those bearings run anywhere from $9 to $45each! 

For what we are doing, that axle set up won’t work the best.  Any time you are cornering, it scrubs off speed because one tire is traveling farther then the other.  Posi-traction may work well if you have power to drive it, but not in this case.

What a lot of the guys do who are running this set up is to mount more bearings inboard and then cut the axle in the middle.  This allows each wheel to turn independently of the other and you don’t get that scrubbing.

The draw back is you need to buy more bearings and hangers.  And if you are running brakes to the axle, you need to also buy the same set up for each side.  With out cutting the axle, you can just run one brake.

You might want to think about going to the 5/8 axle on the rear.  It might be a lot cheaper for you in the long run.  AND, this is something to think about before you make your first run.  There isn’t much sense in pouring a lot of money into this thing if it turns out you aren’t going to be running that much.

We started off with what was supposed to be a quick, easy, cheap way of doing this, just so we could see if it was something we wanted to do.  At this point it’s sort of out of control, but man it’s still a BLAST!  And the more other folks that are getting involved, the more fun it is!

Now if I can just keep the Jerm BEHIND me at the next race…..

I took a little time today to add links to all these photo spreads from the "CARS" page of the web site.

Again, Thanks Jerm for keeping up with all the photos!  A lot of the history would be lost with out this.

Those of you who wimped out and didn’t attend the Halloween race really missed a good one!

The Jerm picked a really great hill on Spooks Hill Road of all places!  We only saw 2 cars the entire time we were out there – and we were out there for a longer time then usual.

The fun run was also run on Spooks Hill Rd, just on a much more moderate section.  So those of you who noticed the
lack of safety gear can rest assured, we were not in any
danger.

Those of you who didn’t make it because you were too scared of a few spooks and goblins, it’s your loss.

And for those keeping track, Drscope’s win means the championship is now a tie between The Jerm and Drscope!  So the December race will really be an important one as the 2009 Championship will be decided in the very last race of the season!