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Acs_guitars -> How to Narrow Wheels (1/15/2007 3:35:04 AM)
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In the construction of my crawler I have finally come to this point and thought since RCU did not have a write-up on this I would do one. The method I am showing requires a drill press and an exacto knife, but this can be done using a hacksaw and a vice. The purpose of narrowing rims is to wrap the tread down into the sidewall to give more "bite" on the rocks. It can also be used when building a scale rig along with narrowing the tires to better proportion the wheels and tires.
On to the write-up........
Once you have chosen the rims, the first thing you need to do is decide how much you want to narrow the rim. I chose to narrow mine to 1.5". After the final width is decided, you will need to mount the wheel to a shaft that you can chuck into the drill press. I used some spare TLT kit parts to do this.
[image]http://image.rcuniverse.com/forum/upfiles/94852/Yw69062.jpg[/image]
Set the drill press to it's slowest speed, turn it on, and make sure it is spinning true before you cut. Once all is well, carefully start cutting the bead portion off of the BACK of the wheel by lightly pushing the exacto blade against the rim so that you cut slowly. If you press to hard and cut too quickly you can damage the wheel or your fingers.
[image]http://image.rcuniverse.com/forum/upfiles/94852/Fa86890.jpg[/image]
[image]http://image.rcuniverse.com/forum/upfiles/94852/Ej12749.jpg[/image]
Then remove the wheel from the drill and measure the amount on the rim you want to remove. Mark the rim in several places around and either connect the dots to make a line around, or use tape to act as a cutting guide. Then re-chuck the wheel and repeat the cutting process. My rims (RPM Torkerz) have inner supports and I had to do some extra cutting to retain them so they would aide in aligning the bead back onto the wheel and make a better bond when gluing things back together.
--- MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE ---[:D]
[image]http://image.rcuniverse.com/forum/upfiles/94852/Oh13037.jpg[/image]
Then you simply glue things back together with CA or any other glue that will work with plastics and the result is seen below.
[image]http://image.rcuniverse.com/forum/upfiles/94852/Wh59145.jpg[/image]
It is very easy to do and the results are worth the time.
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