How Do ATV Beadlocks Work? + Video

How do ATV beadlocks work? This is the question on this episode of our “You Asked, We Answered” video series.

The series is designed to answer the Internet’s most commonly searched ATV and UTV questions.

To find the answer, we turned to resident ATV expert Rick Sosebee to explain how ATV beadlocks work.

An ATV beadlock rim has an inner hub and an outer ring. There are bolts that hold this ring to that inner hub. The bead of the tire gets clamped between the inner rim and the outer ring, securing it in place.

With a typical ATV rim, the air pressure actually holds the tire and the bead together. You might hear this sometimes when mounting a tire as it will “pop” as the air pressure gets great enough to seat the bead.

How Do ATV Tire Sizes Work? + Video

You might be asking yourself “how would a beadlock rim benefit me on my ATV or UTV?” In rock crawling situations you’ll often let some air out of the tires in order to get better contact patch from your tire to the rocks. In those low air conditions, the beadlock holds the bead or lip of the tire between the inner rim and outer ring so that it is secure for those type of situations.

One thing that you want to keep in mind when using a beadlock rim is that some maintenance is involved. Each of the bolts connecting the inner rim and outer ring in place have torque specifications that need to be attended to every so often before you go out and ride.

If you do not maintain those torque specifications, you can start losing individual bolts and have a hazardous situation on the trail, as the tire can actually separate from the rim.