Retreads from Tire Recappers

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Thought I'd give retreads a try on my sisters Truck and see how they hold up. Very impressed with the quality of casings they gave me and the highway tread is great in the snow. They mounted up great and used what a normal tire would use to balance them and run down the road nice and smooth. They use commercial compounds in the retread so they should last a long time and the best part is they were $94.00 USD. Here's a video of the tire if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysPg2qKOUGQ
 
Originally Posted By: A310
They use commercial compounds in the retread so they should last a long time and the best part is they were $94.00 USD. Here's a video of the tire if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysPg2qKOUGQ



Commercial compounds? does that mean they are hard as rock and bad traction?
 
There are some retreads out there from a Midwest recapper who uses ground glass in the rubber for winter traction. They work great on ice and packed snow. There is variation among rubber compounds being used. Gotta check each one out, before doing business ...
 
Well....the most popular recapped off-road tires that get recommended here ( mentioned in the video) and other truck sites across the web get mixed reviews....at best.


Maybe your source will do better.
 
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Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
There are some retreads out there from a Midwest recapper who uses ground glass in the rubber for winter traction. They work great on ice and packed snow. There is variation among rubber compounds being used. Gotta check each one out, before doing business ...


Those sound like Treadwright's Kedge Grip...they work exceptionally well. Treadwright is in Houston.
 
I used to work in a retread plant in BC back in the 80's doing Hot caps (like you have) and Bandag.

I guess standards vari across the industry. But our plant did not give any consideration to quality or safety. Case in point: When buffing a tire (stripping the oil rubber off)
you will find rust spots where the tread was punctured part way. You are required to grind out the rust and fill the void with new rubber.
But sometimes you put too much time into a casing only to find it full of rust.
Discarding the tire would cost money, so we were told to put the casing aside until the buffer blades were worn out, then strip out the steel belts on those junk casings with the worn out blades. I hated doing this, it was quite dangerous, steel belt wire would fly everywhere!

After the belt was removed, a layer of Bandag tread gum was wrapped around the casing to make-up, then wraped with new rubber along with the others on the orbitread machine.

Now, if that were not bad enough, the extra rubber would need extra time to cure in the mould, but 'time is money' and the guy running the Hot line needed to work (literally) by seconds when switching moulds. So more often than not all tires were cured the same!

There were lots of other dodges too.

They all look good when they come out of the mould and get the sidewalls painted. ;-)
 
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A310, the new shop is looking good. Hopefully those tires hold up well for you on the Dodge, I've run a half dozen sets of the Treadwright tires with only one bad one that was promptly replaced. Sorry to hear that your 6.4 in your F350 gave up on you spewing water everywhere. I don't blame you for not bothering to fix it since the engine is coming out anyway.

Speaking of new engine for the F350, I saw that your 4-53T didn't really want to start for you, did you ever get that sorted?

Best of luck with all your projects!

For an oil related thread, will you be retaining the frantz and amsoil bypass systems on the 4-53T?
 
Originally Posted By: expat
I used to work in a retread plant in BC back in the 80's doing Hot caps (like you have) and Bandag.

I guess standards vari across the industry. But our plant did not give any consideration to quality or safety. Case in point: When buffing a tire (stripping the oil rubber off)
you will find rust spots where the tread was punctured part way. You are required to grind out the rust and fill the void with new rubber.
But sometimes you put too much time into a casing only to find it full of rust.
Discarding the tire would cost money, so we were told to put the casing aside until the buffer blades were worn out, then strip out the steel belts on those junk casings with the worn out blades. I hated doing this, it was quite dangerous, steel belt wire would fly everywhere!

After the belt was removed, a layer of Bandag tread gum was wrapped around the casing to make-up, then wraped with new rubber along with the others on the orbitread machine.

Now, if that were not bad enough, the extra rubber would need extra time to cure in the mould, but 'time is money' and the guy running the Hot line needed to work (literally) by seconds when switching moulds. So more often than not all tires were cured the same!

There were lots of other dodges too.

They all look good when they come out of the mould and get the sidewalls painted. ;-)
how does steel belts incased in rubber rust?
 
Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: A310
They use commercial compounds in the retread so they should last a long time and the best part is they were $94.00 USD. Here's a video of the tire if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysPg2qKOUGQ



Commercial compounds? does that mean they are hard as rock and bad traction?


No, these have great traction on snow and hard packed snow. I drove them pulling a trailer for 2 days in heavy snow and they were great. My sister has 800 miles on them now and loves them.
 
Originally Posted By: edwardh1
i see a lot of them, on the side of the road.


This is true, but if you look closely they may be virgin tires and not retreads.
 
Originally Posted By: A310
Originally Posted By: edwardh1
i see a lot of them, on the side of the road.


This is true, but if you look closely they may be virgin tires and not retreads.


This has been my experience that a large number are virgin casings and Chinese made bias ply shipping container intermodal trailer tires. Most caps shed due to under inflation before anything else, heat kills everything equally.
 
Originally Posted By: FlyNavyP3
A310, the new shop is looking good. Hopefully those tires hold up well for you on the Dodge, I've run a half dozen sets of the Treadwright tires with only one bad one that was promptly replaced. Sorry to hear that your 6.4 in your F350 gave up on you spewing water everywhere. I don't blame you for not bothering to fix it since the engine is coming out anyway.

Speaking of new engine for the F350, I saw that your 4-53T didn't really want to start for you, did you ever get that sorted?

Best of luck with all your projects!

For an oil related thread, will you be retaining the frantz and amsoil bypass systems on the 4-53T?


Thanks Luke, I've bought 6 TreadWrights and pick them up this Thursday. I bought the Wardens with heavy Kedge for the mountain roads here and am really interested in how they perform. Yes my 6.4 decided to need a front cover just while I was painting my new shop, so I put an old 2000 ford excursion on the road while I swap engines in my F350. Four of the new TreadWrights are going on the excursion as it has worn out tires on it at the moment. The failed start was a bad starter solenoid, which I'll get to when I do the swap. I did manage to start is later, but did not record the start. It take 4-5 start cycles before it started, and really doesn't like cold starts. To address this I'll be installing a block heater, ether cold start and a Webasto heater. With that sort of redundancy I can depend on it in any weather anywhere in winter. I'll be keeping the Amsoil and Frantz bypass system, but will be running Delo 100 Sae 40. I'll be starting the swap in January, so very excited to get it on the road.
 
Originally Posted By: A310
Originally Posted By: edwardh1
i see a lot of them, on the side of the road.


This is true, but if you look closely they may be virgin tires and not retreads.


All the ones that I've found are complete treads, with steel wires intact.

I would love to find just the tread, no belts, as cutting the rubber off the belts to make flipflops is an absolute pain.
 
Originally Posted By: edwardh1
i see a lot of them, on the side of the road.


This! My buddy had a business and he ran retreads on his fleet for two years and he said he lost at least one tire on each of his trucks he got rid of them all. He said his time and the safety of his employees and equipment much out weighed getting by cheap. Which he said wasn't cheap because when he switched over to better tires he saved money in the long run and made deliveries on time.
 
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Only ever bought retreads in the UK and never had a problem with them, though that's probably only about half a dozen tyres in total cos my UK cars didn't last long.

Dunno if they're available here but I'd doubt it, since I don't think anyone would trust locally retreaded tyres, not even the local truckers.
 
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
There are some retreads out there from a Midwest recapper who uses ground glass in the rubber for winter traction. They work great on ice and packed snow. There is variation among rubber compounds being used. Gotta check each one out, before doing business ...


Sounds like they were copying Green Diamond, which used silicum carbide chunks in the tread. But these were remolds, instead of retreads.
 
Originally Posted By: expat
I used to work in a retread plant in BC back in the 80's doing Hot caps (like you have) and Bandag.

I guess standards vari across the industry. But our plant did not give any consideration to quality or safety. Case in point: When buffing a tire (stripping the oil rubber off)
you will find rust spots where the tread was punctured part way. You are required to grind out the rust and fill the void with new rubber.
But sometimes you put too much time into a casing only to find it full of rust.
Discarding the tire would cost money, so we were told to put the casing aside until the buffer blades were worn out, then strip out the steel belts on those junk casings with the worn out blades. I hated doing this, it was quite dangerous, steel belt wire would fly everywhere!

After the belt was removed, a layer of Bandag tread gum was wrapped around the casing to make-up, then wraped with new rubber along with the others on the orbitread machine.

Now, if that were not bad enough, the extra rubber would need extra time to cure in the mould, but 'time is money' and the guy running the Hot line needed to work (literally) by seconds when switching moulds. So more often than not all tires were cured the same!

There were lots of other dodges too.

They all look good when they come out of the mould and get the sidewalls painted. ;-)


Well there you go! Management imposed what it needed to stay open and the sidewalls made Retail Happy! I'd say you were batting 1,000.[color:#009900][/COLOR]
28.gif
 
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