Steel or Ali?

[Heath]

Time to start a shit fight. (here goes the old "coils vs leafs, tall tyre vs wide tyre, autolocker vs air locker" type arguement)

been looking for some ali rims for my toy. had some luck (not quite what I wanted unfortunately) but not there yet.

I intend to run these on my A class vitara with 31 x 10.5's (and eventually with internal beadlocks). Am I wasting my time with ali rims or is the time spent worth it for the weight savings? Is a 15x7 rim sufficient or should I be looking for 15x8 (even harder to find) and what sort of backspacing should I be looking for (0mm-?mm negative/positive) for each option?

Thanks in advance for the "positive" feedback and options

[mroffroader]

15x8" steels with normal locks and flipped centers....get that width.....not much heavier depending on alloy rim and they dont crack....when ya bend em just smash em with a hammer and there rite as rain again

[skid]

15x8" steels with normal locks and flipped centers....get that width.....not much heavier depending on alloy rim and they dont crack....when ya bend em just smash em with a hammer and there rite as rain again

gotta agree there

[Rotazuk]

My steel beadlocked rims come in at 22kg each without a tyre , there is no way an ali rim would weight anything like that . Even if you save 10kg per corner that is a huge load taken off for acceleration and braking . You have to bear in mind its not just the taller gearing sucking power its the extra force required to get the heavier wheel moving .

They can bend etc and you can't knock them back in to shape as mentioned but I do not think that you would bend them out of shape too often on a trails based truck .
IMO for a bush basher I would go steel . For a rally truck I would look at ali and to be cheep for a while try "no more nails" bead locks .

Chris

[skid]

I wish I could find a pic of it, but some guys have used bolts in behind the bead for a locking device.

put the tyre on with silicon on the beads and then screw bolts into the alloy rim along the edge of the bead to stop the tyre from falling off the bead.

it seems to work just fine

SKID

[spanky]

like skid was saying some people use bolts, i have seen tek screws screwed into the bead wire on tyres and it seemed to work,if you stay with 7s they are less likely to come off the bead.
vaughan