M1123 Greg
New member
- 22
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- 3
- Location
- Bath, PA
Posting pics and write up of my recent o-ring replacement and some suggestions if you have a leaky tire that you suspect is the rim. I had a tire that was loosing pressure within a day or two and eventually took it off to locate the leak with some soapy water. After checking out the entire tire I started squirting the back side of the rim and the bubbles slowly started to form, I had found the culprit. I purchased the O-ring from AM general (item #1246033
. The bolts came off with some difficulty, I assume the threads had just been dinged and dented in normal driving. Also took some effort to separate the rim halves once the nuts were all off, I worked the edge of the rim with a wide chisel and screwdriver, beat it a few times with a rubber mallet too. There was a decent amount of rust between the halves (pics) so I wire wheeled the whole thing, blew off all the dust with air compressor to get a clean surface. Worth mentioning the o-ring I took out looks like it was crushed pretty bad and smeared with RTV (which the government mechanics seem to use for everything) that’s why it doesn’t really look like an o-ring in the pic. Before putting back together I used a tap and die on the studs and nuts, and they went back together way smoother. I used o-ring lube on both sides and put the halves back together. Wound up having to use the nuts to get the rim halves to mate together slowly working around the rim. Got out the torque wrench and using a star pattern torqued it to 85 lbs then again to 125 lbs ( as per TM). Aired it up, and checked again for leaks, success! It’s been holding air ever since. Was a little tentative to break the rim apart at first but glad I did this project. Hope this helps
P.S. forgot to take a pic of finished project-duh
. The bolts came off with some difficulty, I assume the threads had just been dinged and dented in normal driving. Also took some effort to separate the rim halves once the nuts were all off, I worked the edge of the rim with a wide chisel and screwdriver, beat it a few times with a rubber mallet too. There was a decent amount of rust between the halves (pics) so I wire wheeled the whole thing, blew off all the dust with air compressor to get a clean surface. Worth mentioning the o-ring I took out looks like it was crushed pretty bad and smeared with RTV (which the government mechanics seem to use for everything) that’s why it doesn’t really look like an o-ring in the pic. Before putting back together I used a tap and die on the studs and nuts, and they went back together way smoother. I used o-ring lube on both sides and put the halves back together. Wound up having to use the nuts to get the rim halves to mate together slowly working around the rim. Got out the torque wrench and using a star pattern torqued it to 85 lbs then again to 125 lbs ( as per TM). Aired it up, and checked again for leaks, success! It’s been holding air ever since. Was a little tentative to break the rim apart at first but glad I did this project. Hope this helpsP.S. forgot to take a pic of finished project-duh
