Video by BenjaminNelson via YouTube
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I’d like to have better tires on my RC Lawn Mower. Here’s how I’m trying to do it.
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The mower currently has 10 inch pneumatic tires on 4" rims. Unfortunately, the tires are somewhat rounded, and my yard is bumpy and usually wet. I’d like larger, wider tires with a better tread.
I found some BRAND NEW snow-thrower tires for cheap from somebody local. They are 13" diameter, 5" wide, and have a VERY aggressive tread. They are also flatter or more squarish – more contact with the ground than my current roundish tires.
The big difference between the two are the rims. The rims I have use a four bolt hole pattern, spaced 2.75". The snowthrower rims just have a 3/4" tube straight through them. Two VERY different ways to mount a tire!
Frankly, I spent the better part of the day playing around with a few different ideas of how to mount the new wheels without making too many modifications to the existing equipment. I didn’t want to wreck the 10" tires and 4" rims, in case the larger tires didn’t work out.
I also wanted the new wheels to mount as close to the body of the mower as they could.
In the end, it seemed like the best approach was simply to drill holes in the new rims.
The 4-bolt hub on the driveshaft of the motor IS removable. I took it off and pressed out the bolt studs that were in it. I could then replace those with some 5/16" bolts that would be long enough to reach all the way through the new rims with the new holes drilled in them.
So, the hubs will just be held to the rims by the bolts, but I didn’t have any way to center them, other than just by eye. Sure enough, when I mounted the wheel and took it up to full speed, there was significant wobble.
I THINK that if I just have some way to properly align the wheel and the hub, it should fix the problem. I may be able to design and 3D print a spacer with the inside diameter of the wheel on one side and the inside diameter of the hub on the other. It will be sandwiched between the two to make them concentric before I install and tighten down the bolts.
That’s it for now on the RC Lawn Mower Project!
