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M35A3 tire changing to 395/85/20 part 1

BadMastard

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Ok, update to the mighty tire change.

After much research, and lots of spare time, I mounted a 395 on a m35a3 wheel. With stock m35a3 beadlock. It fits just fine. Make no mistake, it's NOT an easy thing to get going, you should have a impact wrench capable of 425 ft pounds of torque to put on the rim nuts, probably more like 800 ft lbs, but 425 should work.

Play by play.

1. get your tires loaded up with your beadlockers. You're going to have to figure out what way works best for you. I watched a miiitary tire expert do it with a boot stomp and a tire iron in 15 seconds. I took 10 minutes. and two tire bars, the kind you buy at a truck stop that are 4 feet long.

2. Put the back of your wheel in the tire. Best way was to put the valve stem end in the center of the tire, then stomp the rest of the rim in. LOTS of tire lube, commonly known as duck butter. Works amazingly better than soapy water.

3. Put your rim and tire assy on a smaller rim or a home depot bucket, lugs facing up.

4. With all your parts already cleaned, and your oring checked on the wheel rim, put the top of the wheel on the rim studs and start bolting them down. At about 1" to go, you are going to hit your beadlock, and it's going to take a while to torque them down. I went about 1/4 inch at a time, in a triangle pattern with a IR 500 lb impact wrench. Keep going. When you are pretty tired of torqueing them down, keep going. About the time you hate your tire, you're almost done. You will need a TRUE 425 lbs of torque to seat your ORING!!!!. 125 aint' going to cut it. 250 aint going to either. 350 did for most of my rims, but 425 did the trick. If your oring doesn't seat, you're going to find out when you put it on the truck. For instance, all 6 of my tires at 150 lbs of torque on the rim nuts seemed sealed up. Dunked in water, checked with soapy water and all. Once on the truck and tightened up 3 of six leaked from the oring. once torqued to 350 ft lbs, they all were happy campers.

4. Your orings are probably reusable if they have no tears in them, and are cleaned of rust and contaminants. There were three distinct orings on my 6 tire. Two round that were pretty round when removed. two pushed into a triangle shape that went back to mostly round, and two that were elongated triangular shaped and thicker than the other two. I loved those last two, they sealed best of all. The moral of the story is to have extra orings just in case.

5. The 395s look AWESOME on the truck. Photos tomorrow when it is light out. The beadlockers are never ever ever ever going to let that tire release.

Tidbits to add. I went to s and s tire store to get the 395's mounted on the stock m35a2 rims. Their tire machine was broken. I went to Les Schwab. They said they would give it a try, but what if they had rims that fit my truck? I laughed, and said not likely. They walked me back into the store room and there were 4 shiny new m35a3 rims and beadlockers. I said I heard my 395's would fit it, did they want to give it a try. They said yes. an hour later with a 1 inch chicago pneumatics impact hammer, they fit. 4 hours later, after helping take off and put on new tires on my new $125 rims, I drove away thrilled. Did I mentioned they stayed at work till 8pm which is two hours past closing to help me? Did I mention they charged me $100 to change all six tires since I bought rims from them? Did I mention they wrenched on my truck till it was right?

I have a new Tire store. They are the best shop I have every worked with. They sent me home at 8pm without a bill, or a penny of my money with nothing more than a handshake and a thank you. They didn't even have my last name. They treated me like an old friend, and they just made me one. I promised to recommend them to the military crowd here in Washington. They are on pacific highway at 176th east in Spanaway. Tom runs the store, and was there wrenching with me till the sweet end. I'm taking them donuts in the morning, come on over. There will be lots of them.

shoot any questions you have to me. The end story? my m35a3 has 395's on it and runs smooth and steady at much lower rpm. My bobbed m35a2 has 14.5x20's on it with a3 rims, and it looks awesome. and I'm grinning like a kid at christmas.
 

jaymcb

Active member
Outstanding to hear. Glad we have a "395's do fit A3 wheels no problem" story....esp since I just bought 7 of them for MY 109 :)

Just makes me wish I was in the PNW to get them mounted @ your guy's store.

Thanks for the tech, might be making a trip to buy a new impact gun to turn those monster lugs.
 

gringeltaube

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......................................I went to s and s tire store to get the 395's mounted on the stock m35a2 rims.
................................. My bobbed m35a2 has 14.5x20's on it with a3 rims, and it looks awesome. ..................
I think you meant to say 14.5s in the first sentence...?
Glad to hear they were mounted on the correct wheels!

I will say this one more time, for safety's sake....: running MPT tires on non-MPT industrial wheels (like the stock M35A2 has) is an absolute NO! ... even if you hear "yes, they will mount just fine..."

And YES, on our "light & medium duty trucks" 395's can be run mounted on A3 (= MPT) wheels at no risk, even if about half of the tire's bead seating area will be left exposed.


G.
 

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BadMastard

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Well, apologies for not getting these posted sooner. The bobber was the m109a3 and the m105a2. The M35A3 is now wearing new shoes (395's) and is much happier with traffic and vice versa.
 

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Anderson Creek, NC
Those of us with A3s have somewhat limited options:

1. Replace the increasingly scarce Michelins with those of questionable condition.
2. Replace with new Continentals by special order. $$ Have heard that Michelins are also availible new for twice the cost of the Continentals, but only at select dealers. $$$
3. Replace with 395s on stock A3 wheels. Works great, looks great, reduces cruising RPM, not DOT approved. Not likely to ever be a problem on a Deuce, considering what this tire is designed to do with those really heavy sidewalls. They will never see half of their design loading when on a Deuce. This is particularly true if the bead lock is installed. This is by far the most practical, and the most cost effective solution. Have never heard of a problem with this setup.
4. Replace with 395s on modified HEMTT, or custom made wheels, not DOT legal, no real benefit considering the loading a Deuce is capable of producing. This is likely a bigger no-no than the A3 rim, and the police DO KNOW to look for non-DOT wheels on trucks. Shades of grey? Perhaps not.
5. Downgrade to A2 wheels and tires? I think not. Yes, you can put tubeless radial tires on the A2 wheel without a tube, if you use those rubber seal inserts.

All said and done, I'll be going with the 395s when I can no longer get the correct replacements.
 

Loco_Hosa

Member
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Ethel, Wa
BM, I have questions. You said you went with the A3 rims for the 395s? I have not done a hole heap of research, but after reading Shovel Head Mikes post I am very curious. What are the differences between the A2 wheels and the A3 wheels? I was under the impression that any for of bead lock is not road legal, but the A3 wheel has bead locks?

I am going to be doing 395s early next year. (Still working on buying the house before I can play with the toy) Bead-locks would be so much better IMHO than the split ring wheels. May-haps I need to look into 6 A3 wheels at the same time!

I have a 950lb impact gun that I use from Harbor Crap, (So realistically it may do 700lb) if you ever need to barrow it for another project like that just let me know!

EDIT: Thanks for the heads up on an honest Les Swab, I been looking to have the alignment done on my Chevy, and I will be calling them in the morning!
 

Sephirothq

Well-known member
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Trevorton / PA
A bit of a related question

What is the difference between the
395/85/20
and
395/80/20

Is the 395/80/20 an MPT tire?

How do they compare the to the 15.5 / 80/20?
 

BadMastard

New member
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Location
Duvall, Wa.
Hey Joe!

Yep, 395's on the A3 rims works pretty darn well. You can put them on with hand tools, no forklift or engine hoist required, and the beadlocks add just a little security to your driving. I don't think internal beadlocks are illegal, but who knows. I don't think I'm going to get stopped and have them take apart my wheels to find them in any case. My IR impact wrench does just fine with putting them on and off, but if you have the air supply and a 1" gun it's a little faster.

I did a tire yesterday in about 1/2 hour including beadlock insertion. I finally got the boot trick down! Only downside is that the spare won't fit on the hanger, time to put it in the bed.

Sephirothq- 395/85/20. If I put something different on, I probably miss typed. Here's my favorite page for what's what on the tires. Army Military Tires All the data for the tires as far as size, etc. I think the 15.5's are close to the 395's. Not sure about npt, but I will tell you check your rim sizes.
 

jtron79

Member
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Location
Eugene, Or
if I may ask where did you get the wheels from? (pm me if you need to) I'm not looking for the tires but some fmtv wheels for my 5 ton would be sweet. They really look great on your A3!
 

Loco_Hosa

Member
462
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Location
Ethel, Wa
I just had a complete idiot moment, I started to PM you to ask about the remaining A3 wheels, (Because your now only using 6 out of 10, right?) and then remembered that A3s only had 6. I felt silly and thought you may get a laugh out of my moment.
 

michaelpilot1

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Kennesaw, Georgia
Anyone have pics of 395's mounted on an A3 with the stock wheels?

I used a standard hammer style bead breaker to get the old 14.5 michelins off and a ratchet strap to turn the bead lock into a figure 8 shape for ease of installation. The first tire took 40 minutes the last took 15. The Goodyears ride better are quieter than the 14.5 original tires, I have about 700 miles on them so far. The only problem that I had is that the spare tire will not fit in it's spot anymore. These are new photos since I traded the shelter off the back for a canvas top.
 

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