Grooving worn tires

Jeepj10

Jeepj10

Active Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
Location
Asheville/NCSU
Ive got some 37" Boggers that are worn in the center, basicly slick in the very middle, I was wondering if it would be ok to grove any on these in the center without weakening the tire, would retracing the tread and maybe taking 1/4 inch out be okay?

Thanks Ben

Also they will be going on beadlocks, im not sure if that effects anything but just in case.
 
yea ive grooved TSLs down to the cords to get more life out of them, it works pretty good
 
i seen slick thornbirds regrooved down about 1/4 inch and they did just fine.
 
Be careful.....they thinner you make the tires....the easier they are to puncture.
 
great

Awesome, sounds like its a decent idea as long as I dont go to deep, Secondly is it okay to groove them while they arnt on the rims? may be a dumb question but ive never done it before so thought I would ask.

Ben
 
I don't know if many shops would do that due to liability. They might do a new set....
 
m

Ide rather borrow one considering i just have a little to do. But do I need to have the tires on the rims to do it?
 
Before I go dropping $60 I was wondering what size grooving iron head/blades have most people used? The iron comes with #4 heads/blades (.210"), I measured the wear bars and at that rate it would probably take 2 cuts per wear bar. Has anyone used the larger heads/blades to bring it down to one cut?
 
This arrived today:

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I won't have any time to do any grooving until Sunday, so we will see how it goes.
 
Decided to do about 30 minutes of work grooving on the spare tire (before I get started on the ones currently on the truck). Did 3 of the wear bars. Here is before hand measuring the remaining tread:

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There is about 6/32nds-7/32nds left when you hit the wear bars. So I set the blade to about 4/32nds to leave a little bit of a wear bar there (didn't want to go all the way through it). After:

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0911091528b.jpg


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Went from about 1/32nd to about 5/32nds between the V lugs. The rounded narrower blade that comes with the grooving iron takes at least 2 swipes per wear bar. And its not the most neat/perfect cut, but it does the job pretty well. I am guessing with a wider flat blade (they do offer flat ones) it would go a bit easier, be a neater cut. So far so good.
 
Looks like the tube did a good job. :beer:

I sat down for about an 1 1/2 hours and did about half of one 34x9.5 TSL. Keep in mind I had to stop once and let the iron cool down to put in a new blade. So there was about 1 hour of grooving total.

What I learned:

1.)The Iron gets TOO HOT if you leave it plugged in the entire time. At least too hot for my liking. There was smoke coming from the rubber I was cutting out. So what I have started to do is plug it in till it gets almost too hot then un-plugging it, groove some then plug it back in and un-plug it again. Repeat.

2.)Cutting out wear bars is different than regular grooving. Regular grooving like cutting the V lugs in half only takes one swipe per lug. Each wear bar takes 3 horizontal cut, 2 vertical cuts, plus some cleaning up of rubber strands.

3.)At least in the case of the TSLs it would be good to have 2 different blade/head sizes. The #4 head for between the outer lugs and the v lugs (white arrow) and then a #6 (or #8) head for the actual wear bars (red arrow):

arrowsb.jpg


You would have to go through first and groove out all the areas with the #4 head/blades, change over to the #6 head/blades let it re-heat and then groove out all those areas.

4.)Don't expect it to look that great considering you have to match up 3 cuts (which would change if you had the #6 head/blades). But its not meant to look good, but be functional.
 
Thomas Tire in Asheboro grooves tires for sure... used to work there.
 
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