binfordm715 : XLs freshly siped
XLs freshly siped
Post by binfordm715 on Apr 12, 2006, 11:42pm
Okay.... Picked my freshly mounted XLs up from Les Schwab Tire Center today. Nick's Cub Scout den leader works there and did the siping himself. (He said he was the only one willing to lift them onto the machine!) The regular siping guys said the lugs would be too far apart for the machine to deal with it (which would apparently cause the siping machine to jump and screw up the cuts or something like that). But Kevin, the den mother, said lots of MT tires they do have similar spacing, so they tried it out on the spare first. It worked, so I got my spare siped for free too!
First of all, the tires, filled to 70psi, stand an honest 38-3/8" tall and weigh 140 lbs. each, according my all-too-honest bathroom scale. Here's a shot of my youngest son, Nathan (4-2/3 years old--just ask him!) standing beside the tire, in lieu of a quarter!
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7976/xls0019nj.jpg
And here's a close-up look at the siping, sans quarter, I'm afraid. (So smite me!)
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/2793/xls003a0pi.jpg
The machine will sipe across a set dimension around the whole tire, so I couldn't just get the inner two lugs siped of each alternating trio of lugs. So the siping extends into the inside 1/4 to 1/3 of the outer lugs as well, but stops well short of the outer edges of the lugs, where the rubber would be subject to a lot more abuse and thus break off in chunks. I think I'm going to be okay this way.
The siping goes almost the entire depth of the lugs too, as you can see in the picture on the inside edge of the outer lugs.
I'll get them mounted on the truck, probably tomorrow, unless Jennifer thinks of a bunch of stupid stuff for me to do around the house. More pics later.
