Ok so I come home from the dirt dawg race, start looking at what I need to turn my pretzel into an 1/8th scale buggy again, and I notice how hard my tires were. We decide to cut the open and I cant believe what I found. It looked like my tires had sucked in about a half pound of dust. Has anyone ever seen or herd of this? What can be done to prevent this besides not spinning the tires?
Heres a few pics. Notice the bent EBAY brace and the shered off bolt in the rear bulkhead. Nice work if i do say so myself. With all the torture I gave it, im glad thats all...
How do you vent your tires ? On the rim or cut holes on the tire itself ?
He vents in the rim.
It didn't look like there were any loose sidewalls either when we cut the first tire open. The dust was super fine like concrete mix and actually travelled through the foams after only 5 race days.
Wow!!! Thats crazy!!! I cant believe that!!!
??? Smaller holes in the rim and molded foams like the green Panthers ????
How about a small piece of goretex affixed over the vent holes. It breathes but is too dense to let dust in? Just thinking out loud.....
How many vents did you have in the wheel?
Or tape over the holes (completely blocking them) when running on dustbowl condition? Or would that be worse than the results you already have?
Or just oil the foams to trap the dust before it can fill the wheel (that's a JK sugegstion!)
Incredible pictures!!
The scret is to vent the tires not the wheels. This way centrifical(Sp?) force will force dirt and water out when you spin them. For the proline wheels you have to shoo goo the holes from the factory and then with an exacto knife I make 2 slits in the shape of an x on my tires.
P.S. You need to have some vent holes otherwise the tires will trap air and become very bouncy.
How often around the tire do you do this?
I have tried 1 and then 2 on opposite ends and didnt notice a difference between the two. See you just make a slit so the flap is still there and keeps most things out but the centrifical force will force things out.
Another way for MT tires is with a leather punch on the inner side wall
That is weird...were those premounted tires and rims? I dont think kevin put in any vent holes in there factory.
oh and how the heck do u bend a buggy like that....
I thought the "burn a hole in the tire with a paperclip" method sounded good.
I use a soldering iron or leather punch and put 3 evenly spaced holes on the tire. The force spits all the crap out.
I have herd of venting the tires , but never found the need. Im going to try that with the exacto knife.
To answer a few of your ??? Those were premounted prolines with the vent hole on the inside of the wheel. I guess running on watered tracks is the reason iv never seen this before.
And Matt- I bent that in the last qualifier tryen to do tripple-double in front. And yes I beat you with a broke truck. :lol:
1 More question George. With that X in your tires, have you ever torn or riped the tire apart with that cut in there?
No, but obviously dont make your x's an inch or so wide,, Just a small X
I like this idea. I'm going to Shoo Goo the holes in the rims on my Revo and use the tiny tip on the soldering iron to put 2-3 holes on the tread side.