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I am helping a friend fix up his truck. He brought the wheels with his new tires mounted to my house and dropped them off for me to paint the rims.

You know where the lock rings almost come together there is a little gap. On one of the rims one end of the lock ring is pushing into the sidewall of the tire. So I am guessing that end of the lock ring is bent. It is putting pressure on the sidewall and is noticeable when you look at the gap.

How safe is that going to be pushing on the tire? I am worried about this because I know that sidewall of the tire will flex as the wheel turns and that lock ring will be rubbing on the tire.

Should we change out the lock ring? How safe is it to remove and maybe heat that end of the lock ring and bend it flat?

Thanks, Alan

sturmtyger380 wrote:Should we change out the lock ring? How safe is it to remove and maybe heat that end of the lock ring and bend it flat? Thanks, Alan

If it were mine I would I would not heat the ring and would just replace it after checking to make sure the rim is not damaged and is ok to use. After letting all the air out of the tube ring removal is safe, inflating is the dangerous part but can be done safely. I have changed all of my own tires over the past 40+ years and never had an accident.

A little tire related humor, maybe

Tire Mounting

With all the dangers associated with inflating newly mounted tires I have developed a safe way to do it without hurting my self. For $2. I hire the 12 yr. old kid from across the street, dress him in an old football helmet, hockey mask and gloves and have him hold the air hose with a pair of BBQ tongs. His always drunk mother doesn't mind as long as I give her the usual bottle of Gin to keep her happy and the hold harmless agreement she signs and dates has held up in court so far. After I set him to work I hide in the basement until I hear the loud BOOM or he knocks on the window giving me the all clear. We only had one mishap but he says he is right handed anyway and doesn't miss that left one and he seems to do ok with the hook I made in the shop to replace the missing one.
So, folks If you are going to do your own tire work, stay safe.

We have some other rims we can take the lock ring off of one of those. I might heat the bent one up just to see if I can bang it back. It is just the very end and the top end of the ring. The bottom where it goes into the locking slot seems fine.

Alan

My only concern is if heat will alter the temper and soften it and cause some failure "down the road".

This last weekend we started to take the ring off that rim that was bending toward the tire. When we really looked at the lock ring we decided that 6 inches away from the end of the ring it looks like someone at one time ran into something and bent that part of the ring away from the tire. That caused the gap end of the ring to point into the tire. We declared it no good and it will go back to the tire guy to swap out for another ring. Thanks guys for helping.