Safely fill tires

That’s not a split wheel. It’s a lock ring wheel that was not safely and properly mounted in the land of vodka.

 

I have changed those split rim Truck tires many times. I always used a BOLTED down cage. My father told me clearly if he ever caught me doing one like they were doing in that video I would need a Proctologist to get his right foot out of my butt! Notice I said BOLTED down. A cage not BOLTED down can go flying in some situations.

 

Yah never understood having a cage and not bolting it down....so instead of worrying about a tire or a rim flying you possibly have to worry about the whole think now....

 

These are the split wheel “widow makers” that everyone mistakes the split ring for.
You can see there are two halves to the wheel that snap together in the drop center. There are no outside bead lock rings. You use the tube slot as a pry bar spot to pop them loose. They always rusted out at the tube slot rather quickly and made them impossible to safely snap back together. This one came off of an ‘65 5 ton GMC with 8.00-20’s.

 

I’ve never seen one of those. Looks dangerous. I did Truck tires when I was 17. They were all old style locking rings. The 2 pc. Rings were the worst. Locking rings were often rusty, and fit loosely. I’d have to sometimes tap them into place, while airing. It was dangerous work. All were tube tires, had to stuff the tube, put the flap in. What a pita. I got pretty fast at it. Never missed that job. Hard work. $3.35 an hour.

 

I remember 20" wheels with the whole rim split and a solid lock ring and I believe those were outlawed in the early 70's. college job at a major tank hauler the two 'college kids were tasked with replacing all the drives on 45 trade in tractors with 'run offs' tires the service could not repair, section, whatever another time and all of the were on the split rims and most had only 10 - 20 PSIG, just enough to lock 'em.

Those rims were so worn that the inside diameter was less. Some of the inside tires needed to be forced onto the hub. We were given two 8 pound sledges and told to stand off to each side and pound away!

Then a clip on air chuck and aired 'em up after the lugs were tight.

Same rims were the reason, when I was trained to take a tire off the hub to only loosen the lug nuts a bit and then hammer the cleats until everything popped loose their thinking was if the rim came apart the cleats would hold it....

I doubt it! Around the same time [1972] one came apart and killed a tire guy in a nearby town.

Wiki says they were discontinued in 1968