Making an MT/R better in mud

[Trailbst]

Ya I've seen those, nice looking but these are bought and paid for. We all have a US insurance carrier so thats not a concern.

We're not looking at siping, from what I've read that helps on hard terrain such as rocks and ice.

I'm talking about simply enlarging the tread voids by taking an 1/8 to 1/4 off the leading edge of all the lugs, center and side. Maybe enlarge the line that runs between the main lugs in the center. The MTR has ALOT of lugs and not much for voids, so that would explain why they pack up so fast in soft terrain/mud.

You said it right! You're not looking at siping, you're looking at grooving the tires, or opening up the tread voids with a grooving iron.

I think it would help, as long as you don't take off too much of the tread block. A friend grooved his to get some extra life out of his MT/Rs. Had two benefits, created more voids to clear out the mud, and it created more leading edges which helped on the rocks and in the snow/ice.

Try it, it can't hurt! The BFG Crawlers actually come with full blocks and require that you groove them to how you want them, so you could have a full blown mud tire or a rock tire.

Can't hurt in my opinion to open up the blocks to improve it's performance in the mud.


Erik

 

[sidriptide]

a tires ability to self-clean has alot to do with the tread voids but thats not everything. if you look in the voids on something like a BFG MT, you will see small raised ridges along the bottom of the voids. they look alot like the wear-bars that tell you when your tires are too bald. but they aid in releasing the packed in mud, not an engineer here so i cant explain it but i had read a quite a bit about tire design in the past. has something to do with the way the tire carcass flexes as opposed to the outer tread blocks because its closer to the center of the tire. it helps loosen it from the bottom suposedly. thats how the BFG MTs work so well as a double-duty tire without being designed like a big loud swamper.

opening up the tread on MT/Rs may help a little but its a 50/50 call that you wil only hurt the reasale of the tires when you find it didnt really work. but you may also find out its a huge benefit. guess none of us will ever know unless you try. my personal experience with "cut" MT/Rs is a set of 33s that were grooved for sand racing. the blocks were grooved horivontally across the rectangle to make 2 long skinny bars side by side, almost like thousands of small paddles. they SUCKED in the mud and on the road the decrease in tire footprint made them scary-slippery in heavy rain. they had ABSOLUTELY no lateral traction like if i was trying to drive up the side of a rut of a bank of anykind, they just would slide. however.... on dry rock they were absolutely incredible. slow crawling i could hear each tread-bar "popping" as it slipped and grabbed traction...

 

[j99xj]

j99, I will NEVER stand around and watch you in a MUD pit with CHAINS!

This isn't crawling buddy, down here in Florida where I'm at it's heavy throttle, mud slinging madness, lol, and chains, are a no go.

Ok, chains aren't intended for full throttle applications, but for everything less than that, you will be impressed with them.

I four wheel here in Colorado in the winter time too and it is very challenging. Just imagine a climbing a 30 degree slope on snow in the shady spots and mud in the sunny spots. Also in the evening when the sun goes down the muddy spots freeze and turn to ice. I don't have lockers or mud terrain tires, but with chains it doesn't matter.

Braking and turning traction is also increased dramatically.

As long as the chains are fitted properly and are installed very tightly with the tighteners, I don't see any problem as long as your speed is under 25.

 

[ponyracer1]

Thanks for the reply sid, thats the kind of info we're after. Shame those don't do well on the street becuase they look sweet!!!