Stuck in Camden, Maine

[REF]

I’m curious what rims had this failure? Any photos? I’m trying to picture what exactly happened.

[SierraHawk]

I'll post a photo later today. It is an aluminum alloy wheel that sheared under unusual circumstances. Imagine a clean break between the large central cylinder and the side, rim of the wheel. There are now two pieces. The body of the wheel and the rim that broke free. I don't think it poses a hazard to anyone unless they try to get a wheel that won't turn moving while backing and moving forward X2 for about 30' in each direction. It is a matter of aluminum vs steel. Wasn't a good plan but we needed to get back on the road. Things can get a bit hinkey when you push the equipment well beyond what it was designed for.

[arctictraveller]

Originally Posted by SierraHawk

The body of the wheel and the rim that broke free. I don't think it poses a hazard to anyone unless they try to get a wheel that won't turn moving while backing and moving forward X2 for about 30' in each direction.

Thanks for that info, but I still find it a bit amazing though. It's not uncommon for folks to lock up the wheels during a panic stop on pavement, or off road although undoubtedly there is less stress on the wheel in an off road lockup. Never the less, its a bit shocking that a wheel can come apart at all. Best of luck figuring this out.

[REF]

Wait, what won’t pose a hazard? Driving on a busted rim?
There are a good number of us driving on cast aluminum rims, myself included and I’ve never heard of a rim completely shearing in half, especially under the circumstances you described. If the brakes were rubbing that bad as to cause a catastrophic failure in the rim, I can’t imagine you would have gotten very far without knowing something was not right.
What make and model are the wheels we’re talking about? What’s the load rating per wheel?

[doublevan2]

I just discovered a week ago that after RT to Deshcutes River meet and greet - my right rear Eagle alum/alloy rim was cracked almost 90% thru on two spokes ! Lucky to get home safely trying to keep up with the friggin' YoYo's on our federal and state highways !
Don't know if it has anything to do with being 2002 vintage or not !?

[Timerider]

doublevan2 / SierraHawk2,

Hmmmmmm . . . cracking and catastrophic failure of alloy rims???

This is troubling - albeit not unheard of in extreme situations. I don't want to derail this thread, but I'm going opt to play the "safety" card now and throw this out to the forum right here anyway . . .

Our SMB came from its original owner with Eagle alloy rims. I've never been fond of them. The per-wheel weight rating on our rims seems just slightly low (3420 lbs. for the 8-lug pattern vs. 3640 lbs. for other makes of similar rims), but that's no big deal. However, there's also a 60 PSI air pressure limit cast into the inside of the wheels. Both of these ratings make me question the strength of these Eagle wheels.

We're about to pull the trigger on new tires, and I have been considering new rims as well. I would like to avoid making the mistake of keeping our current 16" Eagle rims when we were thinking about going to 17" American Racing BAJA rims anyway if there might be a significant safety issue here.

Could you both inform the SMB "Hive-mind" as to exactly which rims you have?

Maybe I should have started a new thread for this?

All abuse will be humbly and gratefully accepted if I have mis-placed these comments and questions.

Timerider

[SierraHawk]

I've had these rims for 6 maybe 7 years. The Eagle rims that came with the van were cracking. Cracks were tiny so we had to tank the tire and rim to see where the leak was coming from. I did some research and found that the Eagle brand were way underbuilt and upgraded to American Racing. I looked at the inside of the rim and cannot find a weight rating or PSI max number.

I bought the AR rims at Americas Tire along with BFG 285/75/16s. The tires are rated at 80 PSI. I took several photos with my phone but when I click on the "Insert Image" icon I get a popup asking for a URL. My phone does not assign a URL to the photos. Any

I've got new tires but it may be time to replace the alloy wheels with steel.

[Timerider]

SierraHawk,

Yeah, the process of posting pictures on the SMB Forum is pretty clunky. The last time I checked, you had to minimize the file size of each photo (max. 100 kB), add them to your "album" on the site, and then use the URL of their location on the site to add them to your message. Hopefully the announced software upgrade for this site will bring some improved functionality.

I have heard bad things like this about Eagle wheels in the past, and not being able to air up to the full 80 PSI when towing a trailer has made me uneasy whenever we tow. Fortunately, most of the trailer loads have been pretty light, with proportionally light tongue weights. At least, the rear tires don't "look" excessively squished.

Below are a couple of pictures of our current Eagle rims, but they haven't actually appeared for the last hour or so since I posted them:





Hopefully more forum members will add their experiences to this thread.

Timerider

[SierraHawk]

Photos finally posted above.

[Timerider]

Okay, so the two pictures that I included in my message didn't appear as planned. I'm working on this . . .