1974 f600. Thanks

 

Only when they experience catastrophic failure...

.

 

Those are "split rims" and in some places no one will work on them anymore. They are generally only dangerous when seating the bead and most shops that sell truck tires should be seating them in a safety cage these days anyway.

 

There are worse designed split rims. Every rim I worked on on early 80s military vehicles was like this. You can change a tire with a hammer and good pry bar. Changing tires was considered operator maintenance. We never put them in a cage, but always faced the lock ring against the ground when airing up. We sat on the tire. The rims on my 79 are this type, although not OEM.

What? Me worry?

 

Widow makers? I don't think so handled correctly. Used successfully for many years. If very rusty they can let go. Yours look OK from the pics. Tire mounting and initial air up needs to be handled correctly as mentioned. Also need to find a tire store that will work with them... as mentioned not all do. It is also important to run a wheel liner so the tube does not get pinched.

If you are running a lot of miles and changing tires you can probably find a tubeless (not split) rim in your size or close as replacement.

 

Never never never never do that. If the ring fails, it will do so with adequate pressure to launch you through the roof of whatever structure you are in, or high enough to cause serious injury should you survive the initial explosion.

These are ground rules for mounting all tires, not just split rims.

Safest seating is in a cage. Next safest is mounted to the truck with at least several lug nuts with a clip on air chuck and no one standing in front of the tire.

Never sit on a tire, and never lean over a tire while the bead is seating, and never seat a bead while a tire is laying horizontally. Even if it doesn't force over the lip of the rim and explode, the force of the bead seating is sufficient to launch the tire air borne.

You only need to watch a handful of YouTube videos of it gone bad to see the destructive force a simple passenger car tire can unleash. When I was in products liability there was a Texas tire who took 16's off a set of unmarked 16.5 rims and so put 16's back on. He laid the tires flat and leaned over them to seat the bead. When it failed to seat, he increased pressure. When the bead tore out of the back of the tire, the wheel assembly struck him with such force that it literally beheaded him, and then continued 20' up in the air to leave a dent in the metal roof of the garage he was working in.
Tire safety is no joke.

 

I agree with this post. I was only saying what was SOP in the 16th Engr btn 1st AD USAEUR in 1982. None of the tires we replaced really popped when seated. More like moved out to the edge of the rim.

 

A local tire shop told me to get the heck out with my splits, guy said he has scraped far too many brains off the ceiling as a result of them. In addition, a friend of a friend lost his arm to one. It let go, hitting his arm, completely shattering the bone. It had to be amputated.

 

ALWAYS ALWAYS use a cage or multiple chains crossed over the tire/rim and a clip on air chuck to air these up! I worked in a tire shop for a year and heard enough horror stories...

 

I'll just leave this here.

 

Properly handled and with them in good shape all should be fine. Although knowing of all the stories and seeing videos are more than enough to keep me away from those split rims. I myself will never touch them and neither do any of the shops in town.

 

at the 11:55 minute mark is the start of the split rim tire section but the whole video is awesome