what new wheels to get?

[McBride]

View attachment 284242View attachment 284243View attachment 284242View attachment 284243Hola, I am McBride's "friend", at least I think I am
I did just move over to the civilian Hutchies and the 315 75 16 KO2's, along with Titus's Polly 50mm spring spacers and the 30mm wheel spacers you mentioned. So far so good. There is some rubbing on the steering arm from the front left when turning full right, even on flat ground, but it's super slight. No rubbing on the fender well, at least on the flat, I haven't tried to compress it yet. As far as the wheel spacer goes, not sure I need it, it's too early too tell. There looks like the is plenty of room without it, except probably for rub on the steering arm. I will report back as I play with the combo.

As far as my Attiks go, yes they are for sale. I have five, all in used but presentable condition. One has a BFG KO 295 75 16 that is 7 years old, but has never been on the ground, always the spare. Not sure on price just yet. What is the going rate these days?

I also have a set of the metal spring spacers from Vogler Tech available. 40mm and 30mm

Looks great brotha. Can't wait to hit the trail.

If nobody has noticed yet, take a look at the rearmost side windows of this G.

 

[McBride]

Yet another example of McBride sucking his pals into the vortex of overlanding expense. These are the Hutchinson "military" version with 33" Goodyear MTRs.View attachment 284253 View attachment 284254

Now that's a great looking SWB G500! Looks like it can go anywhere. It certainly is a rare beast not often seen in the USA. Looking forward to a NM Treffen with you guys. I have a great route in mind.

Ilian, hope you enjoy these wheel pics on some New Mexico G's. I appreciate your current dilemma!

 

[McBride]

Poobah,

Just noticed that you have the center caps on your wheels. Did your old ones fit or did you order some new ones? If it's the latter what size do we need for the Hutchinson's?

 

[Poohbah]

The old ones popped right in.

 

[ILIAN]

I like the look of those civilian Hutchinsons but don't like the fact the centerbore is 0.6mm bigger than the G hub. I don't want to have to deal with vibrations. The difference is also too small to make sleeves for them I think. I'm waiting for pictures of a used set of 16" Ashtaroth wheels. If this deal doesn't go through I will contact you about the Attics. Do you have noise issues with the Front Runner LED light bar mounted in that position? I have the same setup and got a good solution for the whistling.

 

[All-Terrain]

Sent you a PM, ILIAN.

 

[burquedoka]

Back from the Expo, 800 ish miles of dirt with my Expo companion McBride and his ************** camper. I will need to do some playing around with spacers and maybe springs as I definatley have some rubbing going on. It's not terrible, but it is annoying at times. I think I will hang onto the Attics for a little while while I make sure I'm happy with everything, the dyna beads in the Hutchies don't work well, at least not with the amoun I have in them. I am going to empty out the spare and see how successful I could be with discount tire traditionally balancing them.

ilian, I would be interested to see your Frontrunner light bar whistle solution, it is maddening. I'm not very happy with its rock guard either, pretty cheesy if you ask me. The light itself is nice and bright though.

 

[chris505]

Dyna beads and equal powder never worked in my 35s either. I bought my tires from discount and also got the lifetime balance and rotation, first balance was great because I was the first set on their brand new balancing machine, second balance was aweful, and 6 subsequent balances from 6 different discounts in 2 states never improved the vibration, so I got desperate and tried more and more of the beads, then came the powder which gave the worst results of all.

My solution was road force balancing at a small high end independent tire shop in scilicon valley that focuses on Porsche race cars. That guy takes pride in his work and meticulously cares for his balancing machines and it showed, now I only go to him- it's an hour drive from me but it's worth not ever dealing with vibes. My brother in San Diego can't even get his G500s 32" tires vibe free no matter who he takes them to!

You may be out of luck in ABQ finding that level of quality. But give all the Discounts in town a chance before you ship them to NorCal for RF balancing (you may get lucky in ABQ and be the first set of tires balanced on a brand new hunter RF machine) :snorkel:.

Rubbing in back will only be cured by relocating the body, limiting suspension up travel or keeping the rear track width as narrow as possible.

 

[ILIAN]

I ended up buying a used set of 16" Ashtaroth wheels. This will make me happy for now. I recommend a 1.5" body lift to fit 35"s without rubbing and improve the angles a bit. This much lift dosn't change the way the car handles at all. I have the ORC 40mm body lift kit installed and I can make another one for cheaper. I ended up not using their bumper lift brackets since I'm making custom steel bumpers. I didn't get rid of the whistle completely but now it dosn't bother me anymore and cannot hear it with the window down. I can barely hear it with the windows up and radio off. Some people say they have gotten rid of the whistling by covering or filling up the cooling fins in the back of the light bar but I don't recommend this for obvious reasons.(they were using cheap ebay light bars) I will post some pic here soon.

 

[mk216v]

Poobah,

Just noticed that you have the center caps on your wheels. Did your old ones fit or did you order some new ones? If it's the latter what size do we need for the Hutchinson's?

William,
Tony Cruthers at Motorsports in Portland has custom center cap adapters for the WA-1207 Hutchies, to allow for OEM Mercedes center caps to fit(why they don't fit direct from Hutchinson, probably goes along with the fact that these wheels aren't hubcentric to the different G wheel(nose) hubs. He's a good friend/associate of mine and where I got my Hutchies/center cap adapters...as well a FrontRunner goodies. Tell him I sent you; 503.244.9010

I had Hutchinson/RockMonster WA-1207 beadlocks (16x7.5" +37et, 5.83" backspacing, 35.6lbs) with 285/75/16 BFG AT's. Only rubbing I had was on rear wheelwell liner plastic at heavy articulation with vehicle fully loaded for a big trip(weighed in over 7100lbs). I still can't understand why all of these 16" cast wheels need to be more than twice as heavy per their diameter--stupid. I suppose if you want to spend $800/ea for a forged wheel you could get it down to 17lbs/ea.
They were a good wheel and I'd probably buy them again. Sure look the military business. We used Counteract or Equal beads; most times the Hutchie's produced no shimmies in the steering wheel. Every once in awhile a phantom shimmy would creep about 58mph--no pattern whatsoever.
PS--good to know about RF balancing removing your vibes Chris!

 

[mk216v]

I ended up buying a used set of 16" Ashtaroth wheels. This will make me happy for now. I recommend a 1.5" body lift to fit 35"s without rubbing and improve the angles a bit. This much lift dosn't change the way the car handles at all. I have the ORC 40mm body lift kit installed and I can make another one for cheaper. I ended up not using their bumper lift brackets since I'm making custom steel bumpers. I didn't get rid of the whistle completely but now it dosn't bother me anymore and cannot hear it with the window down. I can barely hear it with the windows up and radio off. Some people say they have gotten rid of the whistling by covering or filling up the cooling fins in the back of the light bar but I don't recommend this for obvious reasons.(they were using cheap ebay light bars) I will post some pic here soon.

The filling up of the cooling fins just might be the trick yes. I have 3 rubber "isolators" on my Rigid Industries 50" LED bar(their isolators) and these stick into the fins of the center, left, right of the back of the light.
Give them a try; http://extremeledlightbars.com/content/images/thumbs/0000332_rubber-wind-isolators-for-led-light-bar.jpeg

 

[ILIAN]

My new wheels and tires

Before pic with 33" Duratracks and 18" wheels and after pic of 34.6" Stt Pro and 16" wheels. I'm very happy with the new look. New tires make a bit more noise but not like other Mud Terrains and the handling is the same as the Duratracks. The lug patterns are similar so I didn't expect them to be much different. Duratracks have more sipes so I'm still going to run those in the winter till I wear them out and then getting another set of 35".

 

[ILIAN]

And the rest after resizing


The 5.0 engine can handle these tires pretty good without regearing. I'm running 30mm spacers in the front and will put 30mm spacers in the rear. I still have plenty of clearance so no rubbing and the only spacer necessary is the front left one.

 

[mk216v]

Oh yeah, those look proper.
Only spacer necessary is LF?

 

[ILIAN]

Yes for not rubbing on the pitman arm.