First off, let me say that this is not that hard. I was dreading this project and now that I am into it, I wish I would have done this sooner.

I forgot where I bought these beadlock rings, but there are a bunch of places out there on the web selling them. I paid under 200 bucks for 8 weld on rings, enough for 4 rims. I had to buy my bolts myself. But for the price of one rim, will have all four of mine done.

Here is a shot of just one of my rims after only two trails at the Hammers in Johnson Valley.

Pretty chewed up and not too mention, my valve stem is barely there (yes it still held air).

First thing you need to do is break the bead of the tire, you can take it to a tire shop, but I'm a cheap ass and I hate paying someone to do something that I can do. I found the quickest way was to lay the tire down in the driveway and drive up on it with my Ford F-250, you have to back off of it and spin the tire and drive back up on it, about 3-4 times per side. But it popped right off and I didn't break a sweat. Plus it gives the neighbors something to gawk at.

Now that the bead is popped, you will need two large pry bars or screwdrivers or some tire spoons to pull the tire off the rim. I happen to have a medium pry bar and a large screwdriver. Place the tire down with the front facing up and make sure you lube up the bead with some soapy water. Then just get one of the pry bars in and get the bead over the lip of the rim and hold it there. Take the other pry bar and beat it in between the bead and rim a few inches away. This is where you will break a sweat and pry that tire up, it might take you a few times, but once you get a few inches of the tire over the rim, you just keep going around like this, always leaving the first pry bar in place.

Alright, now that you have half of the tire off, lets get that rim all the way out, this is easy compared to what you just did. Get one of the those pry bars in between the inner bead and rim, and pry it up and over. Put the other pry bar in the same as before, a few inches away and pry!! Once you get this started it will become easier and about when half of the rim is out, you will be able to just pull it out with your hands.

Now that the rim is out, I removed that broken valve stem and cleaned up the hole. Because it will be getting welded up. This is a good time to look at where the beadlock ring will sit on the rim as compared to where your valve stems are. Most likely it will be a very tight fit, so you might as well move the valve stem farther in on the rim.

What I did was drill the new hole for the valve stem 180 degrees from the original hole, my simple mind thinks this will help keep the rim somewhat in balance. Before you drill this hole, take into account where your hub is also, you don't want to go too deep into the rim or it will be just as hard to get to, so I placed mine just where the rim flattens out so the valve stem will have a nice seat.

Now for the fitment of the beadlock ring.

You can see a nice bend in my rim, so I had to beat it back into the ring with my BFH. There is just about an 1/8" gap between the rim and beadlock ring. This will be good for getting the weld down into that gap!

Once that is done, I welded up the old valve stem hole. And ground it smooth.

Then I painted one side of the beadlock ring and the rim. Why?  Because when you weld that ring on, it will be a real pain in the ass to paint the inside of your rim, plus I didn't want to leave any bare metal under the beadlock ring for rust too. Once painted I just wire wheeled the outer lip for welding.

Now that the rim's lip has been wire wheeled clean, place the ring down in there and start your welding!!!

After I was done and the rim cooled a bit, I busted out a flapper wheel for my grinder and smoothed out the welds. I did this so the inner bead will slip over this part easier. (and to check my welds for holes that air could leak out of)

So far, I have about 1.5 hours invested into this rim. Not bad.

Now paint the outer part of that ring.

After the paint dries you can mount the tire back up. This part will take a little sweat, as you place the inner bead over the beadlock ring, get one of those pry bars and hold it under the lip. Now with the second pry bar, just like before, place it a few inches away, just where the tire is on top of the rim, get it under the tire and past the lip of the rim, and pry. You might have to use your BFH to get the pry bar there and once there you can use the hammer to beat the bead down over the rim. You will have to do this until you get half of the tire on, then it will just pop on over.

Now a very important step, you want to RTV everything, I did the inner bead and then the inner beadlock ring. Here is a picture of the RTV on the inner beadlock ring.

Now just center up the tire on the beadlock ring.

Place the outer ring down on there and start putting in all those bolts, 32 of them on these, ugh! This took the most time of the whole installation, was tightening up all these bolts. I used grade 8, 3/8 - 16 x 1 3/4", and used nylon nuts to secure them, I thought about going with the fine thread, but I wanted to keep it K.I.S.S., meaning just about every other bolt on my rig is course thread. You never know when you will need a bolt out on the trail and I am not against pulling one out of something for something else that has a higher priority!

Some rings have nutserts, but I do not care for them. I'll spend a little more time and use something I know will work every time. With these rings there was no anti-coning ring. What that is, is a 3/4" spacer roughly that is towards the center of the rim on the inner beadlock ring. It keeps the outer beadlock ring from coning in. (the center of the ring is bent in as compared to the outer portion of it. I did not get that with these rings and really didn't feel like making one. Didn't feel it was hurting the outer ring any. Here are a few pictures showing you what I am talking about.

Here is where the rings start out in relation with one another. There is about an inch space there.

Then when all the way tightened down they are touching in the center.

I found that just tightening them down around in a circle works better, it's easier to keep track of what bolt you tightened. I just used my half inch ratchet and a wrench for this. It took about 6 times around the wheel before they stayed tight. It sucked the ring down so much the two inner parts are touching. But once there, they stayed tight and I made one more pass. Then I got out the torque wrench to check myself. Common rule is 10 - 20 ft pounds. I tested a few and they were all around 12 pounds, good enough for gov't work!

Now put the rim up onto something so the inner bead will rest against the inner part of the rim and fill it with air until the bead pops on. It took about 12 pounds of air for this one, seemed like a put a lot more into it.

I then aired up the tires to 25 pounds to let the beads seat good.

Here you can see where the valve stem turned out. Just right for filling it up with air! You can also see how the two rings are touching in this picture, guess it will keep the crud out.

Here is the final view of them.