A few months ago, ZUK mentioned that he'd used polyurethane roof flashing sealant from Home Depot on the inner bead of his beadlocks to keep them from leaking air, and suggested someone try it on both beads as a poor man's beadlock. I was so intrigued by the idea, I decided to do just that. I can't claim any credit for the idea, but this is how I did mine:

1) Remove tire and unseat both beads. I remove the valve stem, then use a hi-lift with the base on the tire and the arm pushing up against my rock sliders to accomplish this. If you use beads, BB's or anything else inside the tire to balance it, be sure to move the tire around carefully after the beads are loose to avoid spillage. Don't ask me how I found this out. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

2) Once the beads are loose, clean the tire bead. I used brake cleaner on a paper towel. Also, rough up the bead surface on the wheel with 50-60 grit sandpaper, like this:


3) Next, apply about a 1/8" bead of sealant onto the tire bead surface:


Follow that with a bead on the wheel, as far inside on the mounting surface as possible, like this:


ZUK used a his finger in a rubber glove to smear the sealant over the bead surface, but I didn't do that. (Because I forgot - I'd do it if I were doing this job over again.)

4) Air the tire up. I used my Powertank set to about 110psi to seat the beads, then put the valve stem back in.



5) Scrape the excess sealant off with a putty knife, then clean up the tire and wheel with mineral spirits. Finish airing up, remount the wheel and move on to the next one.

Each one took me about forty-five minutes to do, and I don't work particularly quickly. As ZUK mentions below, try not to get the sealant on your skin. See the black marks on my legs in the photos? It's now five days later, and they still look the same.

I've not had a chance to test these yet. I like to run about 5psi in these Pitbull Rockers, and I did lose a bead last year by doing that in a cold creek. I'll report back in this thead once I have some trail time on them. If this works, we're talking about double beadlocks for 6$, with no screws. That's the best deal around.

Mark