Attn Dirk!! Please post a how to about narrowing tires?

[Mikey007]

Same as the title! I have been searching everywhere to find all the info I need to narrow a set of Jumbo Claw Dawgs like you and Russell did. Also please post how you narrowed the maxx rims? This would be a great addition. Thanx.

P.S. If there is already an article please post a link. I have searched high and low and haven't found anything explaining the process step by step with pics.

Mike

[DirkDigler]

send me your email address and I'll send you the completed article that I wrote.

[ultralord]

can you send it to me as well.? i have a pair of jumbos that i would like to do the same. omalley@myway.com

[SR5Dave]

Originally Posted by DirkDigler

send me your email address and I'll send you the completed article that I wrote.

Dirk.. why not post it? I would like to see it too

[DirkDigler]

Jason does all the posting for the articles and it takes a lot of time and bandwidth to do it. I will try this way: I will also get some pics up in a second!

Narrowing Kongs
I had heard that it was possible(Thanks BT). Some of the street car guys and off road buggy racers were doing it. Narrowing tires! I finally had the balls to cut a set of tires in half with a pair of tin snips. It was painful the first time, as I watched a $70 set of IMEX Jumbo Claw Dogs fall in halves. After I was done, I found that it worked great. I just wished the Claw Dogs were 7 or 8 inches tall! The answer: JUMBO KONGS. Yeah! Narrow the Jumbo Kongs!!! It was the perfect tire to use. So….read below to find out how easy it is to get a tire to look and perform like a real rock crawler tire. Eight inches tall, three inches wide!!!!!!

You can see in the picture, two stock Kongs. One, the rear is mounted on an RPM Claw wheel, made for a Tmaxx. Very narrow. The front tire is mounted on an IMEX Jumbo Diamond rim that has been narrowed. Both wheels narrowed the Kong significantly but I was after Super narrow. I dismounted all the tires from rim and got out my nice new tin snips that are still razor sharp. I used tin snips because they are sharp and you have to use little effort to cut with them. If they could go through metal, they would breeze through rubber! The Kongs have thick rubber lugs and you’ll appreciate a good cutting tool after you’ve finished the job.
The Kongs are about 4.5 inches wide. I wanted them to end up at about 3 inches, mounted on a narrow wheel. I thought about 2 inches wide but figured, being that narrow, they would be better suited to cut pizza. Three inches was perfect.
I removed about 1 inch from the center of the tire. The snips worked awesome. Very straight and clean cuts. The most critical part is to make sure your final cuts are very straight. You don’t want big gaps to have to fill in with glue, etc. After removing the center section, I trimmed a little more off of one side to make them even. Total width removal was about 1.5 inches. I then had my two halves of a Kong. $100 tires in pieces!!! That’s when I started to worry about the next step….gluing them back together!
First, I tried the two halves on different wheels to see how wide of a wheel I would want to use with the new tire width. I have many different wheels and the three that I chose to mock up with was an RPM Clawz Maxx style wheel, an Imex Diamond Jumbo wheel that I had already narrowed…… and a full width, brand new set of IMEX Sayville wheels. As originally thought, the RPM Claws wheel worked out perfectly.



I then mounted up all the tires, still in halves, on the RPM wheels. I then put them on the truck to see how they would look at 3 inches wide. I could still remove more if I thought it didn’t look right.


Here they are on the rig. It was looking like the plan was coming together and now was the time to start gluing the halves together. I kept the tires mounted on the wheel for gluing so they would remain straight and together. I used regular 20 second CA glue for the first part. I lined the tires tread up how I wanted it to come together and just used a very small dab of glue about every 2 inches. Go all the way around the tire so it’s “together” completely in one piece. Don’t worry about sealing anything at this point. Let the glue dry.
Here is what it was looking like at that point. It was together but with some gaps in the tread voids. I could see how much more narrow it was next to a stock Kong. Remember, this stock Kong is mounted on a wheel 1 inch narrower than a stock wheel. This was just what I was after and I was getting exciting. It was working out very easy too.
After the glue had dried, I got out the big bottle of rubberised CA glue. I would only recommend using some type of rubberised glue to seal up the tire. I squeezed a good amount of the black glue all the way around the tire where the cut was made. This glue is thick enough that it seals and dries quickly but remains flexible.

That was it. It looked finished so I let them dry over night. The next day, I wanted to reinforce the inside of the tire where I made the cut. I cleaned up the inside of the tire with some denatured alcohol. There is a greasy film on the inside of the tires and this needs to be removed for anything to stick on them. I had an old inner tube and I cut it into long strips. I glued the strips on the insides of the tires, over the cut. This would help in keeping the tires from separating. I don’t think I needed to go to this extra step…..but why not, as I’m sure the glue would hold these tires together just fine.
I went out to test the Kongs to see if they worked. First thing I noticed was that they needed to have some lugs removed. The side wall is very tall and flexible but the tread area is fairly stiff. This made the tire want to fold over on itself in extreme situations. The wheel would actually be on the ground and the tire was under the axle tubes, folded in half. It needed foams so I cut the stock Kong foams in half, width wise. Then made them thinner by about half. This worked out perfect. The tire now compresses and conforms to rocks like there is no foam but keeps the tire in control and from over flexing onto itself.
I then used the side cutters to remove tread lugs and for some siping.

I alternated sides and removed half of each lug. I felt that it needed more flex from the tire’s edges but still needed support on the sidewall. That’s why I left one entire lug, every other lug. I siped all the full lugs for some give(not shown in picture). You can also see in the picture how well the tire went back together and sealed up perfectly. I Dremmeled off any excess rubber from where I cut the lugs off and it was pretty much done.
The final touch was to add some weight. The tires wound up being surprisingly light, combined with the ultra light RPM wheel. Past experience told me to put some steel BB’s in the tires to get weight directly on the ground(Nice mod Jason). I can’t tell you how much this helps and is a must in my book. I added the BB’s, CA glued the tires to their wheels and I was done! Easy work. A little patients, a steady cutting hand and the willingness to cut up some pricey tires will net you some awesome results.
Remember….these things are friggin HUGE! I would not recommend putting the Kongs, norrowed or not, on to a smaller sized truck. The wheel base needs to be 15 inches or more. The axle width should be equivalent to an Xfactor’s. The drive train must also be up to the task of turning an 8+ inch tire. You need to be geared down. And like I said, you need to be a little crazy to cut up these expensive tires. But they work GREAT!
Here they are next to a BFT tire that is almost 7 inches tall.



Give it a shot, if you dare.
By the way….I wanted the name of these tires to be appropriate with my screen name, Dirk Digler. So I renamed the new narrower tire to, Jumbo Dongs.

[DirkDigler]

here you can see Kongs mounted on the wheels. They are uncut at this point. One is on a narrowed Imex Diamond Wheel and the other is on a stock RPM Maxx wheel.
They are almost narrow enough on the Maxx wheel......but NOT NARROW ENOUGH!!!!

[DirkDigler]

Shot of the Kongs after being cut. I mounted them on the wheels to see if they looked narrow enough. I then started to glue them back together while on these wheels.

[DirkDigler]

Here is the first one glued back together. You can see how much more narrow it is than a stock one on an already narrowed Imex wheel.

Later, I even narrowed the RPM wheel. It is slighly wider than 1 inch now.

[DirkDigler]

Here you can see how easily they fit back together after all the gluing. You can also see the tread pattern I cut in.

[TwistedCreations]

looks like someone was half drunk and couldn't cut a straight line

thanks for the post Pete, maybe i will grow some balls and try it or is that where the drinking comes into play??

[DirkDigler]

It's actually straighter than it looks. It was also my first cut into the Kongs so it was not as perfect as I would have liked it to be. It doesn't matter too much if the line is a bit wavy, as long as it fits back together snuggly and there are no huge gaps. My next three tires came out even straighter.
And yes.....I do remember drinking quite a bit to get the "non caring" attitude about cutting the Kongs. The alcohol would have eased the pain if they didn't turn out!

[TwistedCreations]

[Mikey007]

Thanx alot for all the information Dirk. I will be running narrowed Jumbo Claws on my Clod. Which rim would you recommend?? Do all T-Maxx/Savage rims work on the Jumbo Claws? Also have you ever tried narrowing a Maximizer beadlock rim while still having functional beadlocks? Could you also post the brand name of your rubberized CA, I 'd like to get the same kind.

Anymore info you could give me would be great. I would like a rim that looks all business, no Bling Bling!

Feel free to email me at mikeyhud@yahoo.com.

I really like how Russells tires look and that is the look I am shooting for, except I don't want the five spoke rims. I think these tires need an aggressive looking rim to match the attitude that these tires bring to the table.

Mike

[DirkDigler]

Ok! Here is what I did. I'll snap a photo of it tonight. Talk about all business......this is the biz!
I took an IMEX Diamond wheel and cut it down so it is only about 1.5 inches wide. I stripped the chrome off so it's flat black as well. I left the inner bead ring on......so basically, I cut the wheels front ring way down. The front of the wheel is almost a flat surface. I then cut oversized, plastic rings, very much like bead locks. I JB Welded the rings to the face of the wheel.....basically, the wheel's new outter ring. It is uglier than shit and ALLLLLLL business. The narrowed Clawz look awesome on the wheels! I just wish I had a truck that I could use them on!........DOH! Wait a minute.......is that a newly designed, totally custom, state of the art, Digler Truck on the work bench right now?
As for the Maximizer bead locks. I talked to Jason about narrowing them last night. From what he said, it would be nearly impossible to narrow them. If you could pull it off, it would be hella work!

[SR5Dave]

Originally Posted by DirkDigler

is that a newly designed, totally custom, state of the art, Digler Truck on the work bench right now?

I wish I weren't a starving college student and could spend money on new RC trucks :(

[DirkDigler]

I just bought 8 purple anodized Integy Savage shocks with the piggy backs.
Making a killer custom chasis

Wait........I'm telling way too much.

[lasvegasharley]

Dirk, Check your email. I sent you some pics.

[DirkDigler]

What the **** lasvegasharley!
You join on Feb 1 and are just now posting?
You were scared, weren't you!!!!!!
Good to see that you will have the first rock crawling Savage that I know of! Why don't you post a pic of it for everyone!!!!

[fullmodtxt]

Dirk, I have dreamed up an idea for narrowing Maximizer beadlocks. Don't know if it will work, it's still just an idea. Almost all of what I do is alcohol-fueled... Isn't it great to just plain start doing things w/o that question mark about if it will work haunting the back of your mind??????? If it doesn't work; have another beer, and proceed to ruin something else without any worries. When you sober up, you won't even remember that you screwed up!!!! Later on, when you accidentaly find out that you did screw up; just have another beer... Vince