Armoured Vehicle Road Wheels

[Bob Phillips]

Can anyone with experience in cold climates with tanks or APCs comment on what effect the cold weather has on destroying the bond between the rubber which is attached to the actual steel wheel. Does extreme cold or freeze and thaw action help split or separate the rubber off a sherman, M113 etc roadwheel ? B.P.

[Grant Bowker]

I don't know if the cold damages the bond but I guarantee that once a small void forms between the track and pad, moisture will penetrate and the freeze-thaw cycles will expand the gap, possibly leading to total separation of track and pad. The power of a little bit of water expanding as it turns to ice is amazing.

[rob love]

In operation, it seemed like it was heat that caused the separation. We used to drive carriers all the time from Winnipeg to Shilo in the fall and winter. Lots of roadwheel rubber on the highways in those days.

[Bob Phillips]

I guess I wonder if the different rate of expansion between steel wheel and rubber when they are subjected to heat or cold start the process of separating the rubber off the steel. The comment about heat contributing to this separation is really the opposite side of the freeze/thaw situation. Does it harm these wheels to sit outside in extreme cold weather??? BP

[rob love]

We have a small half pallet of roadwheels in the storage shed at work. They will see -35 or worse in the winter. I don't expect any degredation of them, but then again ask me in 20 years.

[Robin Craig]

On the Hagglunds BV206 roadwheels at work the rubber chips at very low temperatures during operation.

We are going to try a company called Polymark in Ontario to rebuild ours in polurethane. I am very leery of how this is going to work having been burned by another company before.

Polymark understand our concerns and will be doing a first off before we commit to any quantity, this is how we should have gone before.

We have proven the polyurethane is a more durable product after testing one done by a friend.

[Douglas Greville]

Rob

It comes down to purely the quality of the material used.

If it is British or German or US sourced rubber or synthetic then basically it is rubbish. You would be familiar with the GI saying "your weapon is made by the cheapest supplier".
Thus it is with road wheel rubber and pads.

British rubber especially is bad. I have seen a CVRT shed 1/2 a road wheel tyre due to nothing more than heat build up - technically = hysteresis.

The Aussie army got well and truly fed up with the rubbish they were being sold and went to locally sourced quality product, yep, it cost. But that was the end of the short life issues.

By the way, for those that think synthetics are the way to go, especially polyurethane, you are in for a surprise. Maybe in Canada at -35deg they may work. But any synthetic will respond much quicker to hysteresis and fail much quicker than traditional materials. Looks excellent in a museum display vehicle that sits still, a failure on a vehicle that is mobile.

Note what 45jim says!

Regards
Doug

Originally Posted by rob love

In operation, it seemed like it was heat that caused the separation. We used to drive carriers all the time from Winnipeg to Shilo in the fall and winter. Lots of roadwheel rubber on the highways in those days.

[Robin Craig]

I appreciate the advice and I enjoyed reading the learned document and grasped what it was all about.

As a civilian we are having issues obtaining NOS road wheels. The original rubber could have been as old as 1985 and is well past it's best before date.

We have to re-cover the road wheels and not using rubber seems for our amount of use and or abuse to be a value option.

The Bv206 track is designed to flex and twist and has more than one contact point. Once the moulded edge of the road wheel breaks down and the steel guide horns of the track make contact with the aluminum wears very fast.

I have a few pictures to put up in a minute.

We were royally shafted by a major company in Winnerpeg who did the rubber re-life a few years ago and despite having an NOS example as a pattern part to follow decided for ease of manufacture to machine the edge off and leave no side protection. We were forced to pay up front and despite all kinds of efforts it was felt un-economic ( by higher) to lawyer up and get into a legal fight. We have smarted ever since.

This time I am treading very carefully

[Douglas Greville]

Robin

Your decision.

I will say, that the failure mode of synthetics is from the inside out. Likewise bad formulation rubber. So it is not a case of watching to see if rubber is failing. Case of "oh crap, we just shed a pad or tyre, but they all looked perfectly ok 1/2 hour ago".

Alternately, you could fabricate "wear disks" which is what the M113s use on the inner face of their road wheels. Makes a huge difference.

Regards
Doug

Originally Posted by Robin Craig

I appreciate the advice and I enjoyed reading the learned document and grasped what it was all about.

As a civilian we are having issues obtaining NOS road wheels. The original rubber could have been as old as 1985 and is well past it's best before date.

We have to re-cover the road wheels and not using rubber seems for our amount of use and or abuse to be a value option.

The Bv206 track is designed to flex and twist and has more than one contact point. Once the moulded edge of the road wheel breaks down and the steel guide horns of the track make contact with the aluminum wears very fast.

I have a few pictures to put up in a minute.

We were royally shafted by a major company in Winnerpeg who did the rubber re-life a few years ago and despite having an NOS example as a pattern part to follow decided for ease of manufacture to machine the edge off and leave no side protection. We were forced to pay up front and despite all kinds of efforts it was felt un-economic ( by higher) to lawyer up and get into a legal fight. We have smarted ever since.

This time I am treading very carefully

[Robin Craig]

Here are some pictures. Note how the master has a significant bulge to protect the aluminum wheel. This was the portion that was ignored by the last company and the picture shows how they machined the side face of the rubber and left no protection, the bright silver portion shows steel to aluminum wear.