Adventures in beadlocks.
Must say that I've never had or mounted beadlocks before but watched a couple videos, just not the same.
First thing, soapy water is your friend.
I also believe in the spacer. The spacer give the bolts something to tighten up against, rather than hanging out waiting to break. My personal thoughts.
At first I just tried to put a tire on the rim, no soap, just dry. Well the Falkens seem to be very sticky and no matter how hard I pushed jumped or wiggled it wouldn't go.
(Yes the plastic was off)
After measuring the Falken Beads at .800", I ordered some spacers from Raceline, which are 1/8" thick.
So after mixing up some soap and water, the tire slipped right on. Not thinking, threw the spacers on and started on the front bolts. Well, as you tighten the bolts the clamping ring will center the tire, if it can slip. What I ended up with was, not using soap, was a tire that didn't center or come close to clamping down on the spacers, but looks cool.
As a side note, placing tape (orange marks) help keep track of where you are while tightening the 32 bolts.
At this time I was think that I really messed up because the Raceline steel rims don't have a centering ring. Ok well, let's stop by the machine shop and get some 3/16 Al cut for spacers, $400 to have rims waterjeted out, little above my budget at his time, and again $400 Al beadlock don't look so bad now.
A stop at the local plastic shop yeilded a 4x4x3/16 price of PVC.
Well, the paper template didn't work as well has I'd hoped but eventually they did. Probably should have had the machine shop waterjet them out.
Cutting a circle out with a jigsaw, definitely not something I'm good at but did find that getting the shape close, taping the edge, placing the plastic inside the tire, then using the tire bead as a template worked much better.
Drilled two holes in the spacer from the template then bolted it to a clamping ring, yes the paint was sacrificed on one ring to drill the other holes.
The new 3/16" spacers were added along with 10oz of air soft pellets.
As for tightening this and lots of soap. As we learned earlier, rubber slides much easier with soap. With the soap, the clamping rigs center as it was tightening down with about 4 rounds, then another round with a torque wrench to 15ft pounds.
Don't forget to use a strong enough bucket.
After getting everything mocked up on one rim and tire, I had things sit for a few days, yes this is in the basement so it can be done in comfort when it's 10 deg outside weather.
Weeeeell, the dog decide she was bored and took off with not only a bag of bolts but also all the valve stems. Luckily she only made it out the door before tearing into the bolts, found them all. The valve stems, well not so lucky with 12" of snow on the ground but Firestone was nice enough to supply the needed parts.
Lessons learned:
Soap
Strong bucket
3/16 is probably about the thinnest spacer that should used on steel Raceline and .800 beads. I'd guess I could have ordered another set of 1/8 factory parts and been fine with up to a 1/4" spacer.
And beadlock take time, even with power tools there is a bit of time wrapped up in mounting each tire.
Setting the bead at 10# scares the hell out of the wife upstairs.
My experience, yours maybe be different.