Studding Sportbike Tires 101

 

Materials required:

-2 Tires( one to use as main tire, and one to cut up as a liner)

-Ice Studs(3/4 inch) You can also use sheet metal screws, but your on your own with those

-Tire tub or Tire sealant (you choose, we will try both ways and report back)

-Power Driver to insert Studs

-RotoZip, Hacksaw, Circular saw, Sazall or similar tool to cut tires

 

1. First cut off the sidewall of a doner tire for liner. We tried several ways : RotoZip , Hack saw, Circular saw, and best of all a Sawzall (DO NOT CUT WHERE TIRE FORMS A BEAD--THERE ARE STEEL BELTS AND YOU COULD BE INJURED)

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2. Cut donor tire in half and feed inside good tire, mark-off overlap when installed and cut so the ends fit together snug*

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3. Time to start studding. Decide a pattern before starting. You don't want  studs to be inline with each other. Develop some type of stager for them. Screw one at a time all the way around the tire so you are consistent with your pattern. This tire is about to receive 150 studs---we may add more, but that is a good baseline to start with. We tried to use the tread pattern as a guide for stud placement. Plan to use 2 times as many studs for rear tires

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4. We used 3/4 inch ice studs, designed for ATV tires and dirtbikes. They should provide good grip while remaining legal to run with other motorcycles on the ice (i.e. racing or sanctioned tracks or events). Depending on the tire you use they should just barely try and break through the second tire (liner) . This set up should work well if you want to use a tube like dirtbike ice racers, or possible run a layer of SLIME* or similar tire sealant between the good tire and the liner. We will be trying both ways and report back. You can see in the pics below the tip of the studs trying to break though the lining. Don't screw to hard into the top tire, just until the head of the screw contacts the main tire--we will post more pics as we take them

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*We put Slime in my tires between the main tire and liner. We applied a line of it and then smoothed it out with a rag, its a thin sloppy texture but seemed to bond the two tires together well. We then starting studding to ensure a good bond. The excess slime seeped out the sides of the liner. We used less than one small bottle (not sure of size) to coat the inside of two tires.

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Here are the almost completed tires

This is a front with 250 studs

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This is a rear with 430 studs

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This is another rear with 400 and more to come

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These are two rears side by side--the bigger one is a 170 oddly and the smaller is a 180?????

stud014.JPG (17221 bytes)

 

 

Stay Tuned for more pics and information as we get it. This is our first attempt and we have only gained knowledge through trial and error and other sports that use similar techniques. If you have information about this or ideas please share them with us by emailing me at smoke_em1@yahoo.com

 

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