tire grooving

[dustin_henson1272]

I have a set of 35" km1's with 1/4 to 1/2 tread on them ... I was planning on trying to groove them to get a little bit more life out of them (dont want to buy new as bigger tires are.in the very near future) the jeep is offroad only so i dont see.a.problem with trying. My question is has anyone ever grooved these mud terrains and if so did you just follow the pattern or groove through he lugs as well? I have also searched and found no info on grooving a radial tire ... Is this doable?

 

[johnski]

Grooved my radial MTRs last year. Since the rubber compound is not as soft as a bias, it just takes more time...and sweat. But, it's totally doable.

 

[dustin_henson1272]

Well thats all the encouragment i needed ... Im gonna go in the morning to get some conduit and a propane torch. Thanks

 

[sparkn89]

you can do a radial, you just cant cut as deep. It helps alot on a half tread tire.

 

[dustin_henson1272]

Thanks ... Im about to head over to and get started. Maybe i will have some pictures to post by this evening

 

[Caver Dave]

Im gonna go in the morning to get some conduit and a propane torch. Thanks

Me thinks you'll quickly give up on that method!

It's very laborious & time consuming when done with a decent grooving iron! Add in less control (depth & otherwise), constantly reheating the conduit, & the smell of cooking rubber and you might as well just use an angle grinder ...

 

[dustin_henson1272]

I got the idea from a post on here ... They made it seem easy enough and i didnt even break a sweat reading about it lol. Im gonna give it a go ... Ill practice on the spare. Im thinking aetna cut lol

 

[WeRideNTruX]

saw a guy a youtube use a chainsaw once! and a friend of mine used a sawzall on the boggers on his mud truck.

 

[highrolrcustoms]

here are the super swamper m16's that i grooved a while back for my jeep....grooving made a world of difference in traction. these tires are radials and i used an assortment of wood chisels and heated them with a torch. it did pretty good. took about an hour a tire but i did cut out quite a few lugs and cut reliefs in the others.
here are a before and after pic