Building new wheels/Tires on a budget

[macman809]

Recently became happy owner of a new Axial Honcho, I have been putting in some good trail/crawling time and working out how I want the rig to perform, I am noticing the tires collapse/do not keep their form very well on steep rock moves so I am going to retro fit new foams, I am going with CI Wild Deuce foams as I run trails too and like the idea of the waterproof aspect of the foams. I would like to retrofit the new foams onto the stock hubs with the stock tires and re-glue and drive on them to see how I like the new set up. Is this stupid or should I bite the bullet and go with beadlocks now, if I did I would have to opt for plastic over alloy for cost reasons. The tires (Falken WildPeaks) are doing well, with the soft compound I am easily getting up slate rock slopes with grades of 75% and higher and I can get up steeper climbs in the wet, which doesn't make sense but there you are. So is my short term goal of refurbing my original stock wheels and re glueing going to bite me?

[LSXGMC]

There's no harm in using glued wheels, it is just a pain in the butt / time consuming to take them apart and have to deal with re-gluing. If you can afford beadlocks they are a worthwhile upgrade. Proline makes some good looking plastic beadlocks (Impulse) that can be had for around $30 / set. That would be a great upgrade until you are able to afford some nice metal ones.

Either way, I recommend venting your tires (three 2mm holes evenly spaced in the center of the tread of each tire), especially with the Deuce's Wild foams.

Good luck!

[lonleycreeper]

Yeah I agree with LSXGMC, Don't forget Axial Bead locks, about the same price, and internal weight set is avalible if you so choose.

[Browneye]

Did you find the youtube series on budget build for honcho? I thought it was really good...used a lot of ideas for my Blazer. It's been a very fun rig right out of the box.

Yeah, plastic beadlocks - probly find somebody with a set laying around, send you for $20 or so. I would but gave mine to a buddy.
And china 'chanquish' can be had for sub-$50 - most are pretty good. They knocked off the entire vanquish line for less than half the price. Sure, they're not as nice, but a place to start. Many of them ship from the US, but even from china usually arrive in a couple of weeks.

The wildpeaks are not that great. Just sayin'.

[mewalsh100]

x3 on venting the tires. Be sure to use a leather punch or similar to help prevent tears/rips in the tire. The best method I've seen for getting glued RTR tires off wheels is the low temp baking method. Get a cheap cookie sheet and literally bake the tires in your oven at about 100 degrees or so for 20 mins give or take. (There's a thread on the forums here with more complete info.) Haven't done it myself, but it appears to work well. I've heard it can stink up the house though.

[macman809]

Thank you all for the feedback, I had planned on venting the tires, as using a closed cell foam will not allow the stock wheel vents to work, but I think taking your collective experience it would seem that a jump to beadlocks even plastic would be a much better path to follow. I should have stated that I am a complete noob, so my only hands on experience is driving what I have (a stock SCX10 ii Honcho) as I mentioned I have been amazed at how well the Honcho did out of the box. In response to "Browneye" yes I have watched the Youtube Honcho Build series both Harley Designs and Scale Builders Guild series, a few times. I have followed nearly all of the out of the box upgrades, (checking diffs, gearbox etc, shaving down the steering rod, etc. I have also upgraded the springs and changed the weight of the shock oil too, which has made a big improvement although it would appear that I am still leaking oil. So green slime and another oil change is on for this weekend. I am really intrigued as to how good a tire upgrade will be as I have heard the Wildpeaks are not "all that" the only thing I have seen is that they drive very differently in different conditions not climbing that well on dry slate rocks, and yet they perform really well in the rain and wet climbing better than in dry conditions which is the complete opposite of what I would expect. I have raced bikes, bicyles and mountain bikes so I know a little about tires and tire selection so I am still puzzled on that one. Still I try to get the rig out as much as I can so I am trying to learn what is going on and what I can change and so I don't really know what is "good" or "bad" as I have limited experience. So I really do appreciate you guys taking the time and responding to my post.

[Browneye]

I just sold 2 full sets of alloy beadlocks for $25, shipped. Keep an eye out in the for-sale section if you have time.

I was just catching up with CI on their foams and rigs and they all use the PitBull RockBeast SX's - not the XL's, although you could probly squeeze them in on the HOncho.

My crawling buddy has a pretty modified one and he loves those Hyrax tires - seem to grip well everywhere...just not as scale-looking as some others.

And yes, tires are kind of spendy. Stick with Proline, Pitbull, or Ottsix for something comp-grade. The rest of everything else is for scalers.

I run the smaller RB's on my Blazer - it's pretty amazing how well it does verses my highly-mod'd comp rig - too close for comfort. LOL

Here's $50 import wheels, with front weights, and the RockBeast SX tires. Performance is amazing.



A honcho on hyraxs...



My 'home-built' honcho Silverado...these are the Proline TSL XL's in Predator. I've already pulled them off due to granite shredding them. Went back to rockbeasts XL's. Oh, and another set of $50 chinese import wheels:



With RB's:

[nyy845]

Do a search on ebay for 1.9 beadlock wheels; there are plenty alloy wheels under $30. They are usually from China and it may take a couple of weeks to receive.

I got these for $33:

[Col_Sanders]

The Proline wheels do the job and they are affordable, but there are a million screws on them which makes mounting the tires a pain. There are many budget friendly 1.9s on ebay and Amazon that assemble using 4-6 screws. I've used several sets like Browneye posted and have no complaints. They usually run ~$40-50 and arrive in a week or two.

SSD also has some steel wheels that look pretty nice and are affordable.

[Derr429]

I have a set of the China bead locks and a set of prolines. The china ones seem to do great. Prolines do have a ton of screws but work great as well. I’ve also used gmade wheels and was not a fan at all. Might be ok for crawling but not if your car is some what fast. Bead never stays on.

[djc32294]

Highly recommend axial beadlocks for a budget build. When you get tired of the look, buy some gear head rings to spice it up.

They are not as heavy as alum or steel beadlocks. I added glue on wheel weights internally to compensate for that. And you dont have to worry about beadlock screws rusting into the wheel.

Tires are really personal preference. Pro-Line, Pit bull, and rc4wd have some super soft compounds that make a world of a difference.

You'll quickly find the rtr falkens are not very good lol