Monday, May 30, 2011

Reproduction Bruiser/Mountaineer tires

I recently bought some repro tires for my Mountaineer from eBay seller 'nowingu'. These tires are much softer than the original stock tires that came with the Bruiser and Mountaineer kits, but the tread design is very similar.  Many people complain that the stock tires these kits came with were too hard, so these repro tires are definitely worth a try.
Bruiser/Mountaineer repro tires by 'nowingu' on eBay

There is no sidewall lettering of any kind, so they are sort of plain looking, but the mold alignment and quality is very good.  The bead is uniform and the thickness of the rubber does not appear to vary much at all.  They do not 'wobble' or otherwise have any deformation issues that I've run into with tires made by RC4WD in the past.  However, I don't know how these will age over time, nor do I know how they will wear with use since I've yet to install them on my Mounty.  I am hopeful that they won't disintegrate too quickly (either by running or sitting on a shelf), but who knows.  The tires are sold in sets of 4 at the time of this writing.

The tires do not come with foam inserts so I spent a fair amount of time looking for some that would fit.  I believe foam inserts are a necessity for these tires due to their softness and the weight of the truck.  I finally found these:
JConcepts AND-1 Truck foam inserts (#3201)

The JConcepts AND-1 1/10th Truck Tire Inserts (part #3201) are a very good fit for the tires.  I chose the firm style because I felt that the tires needed the extra support.  While it could be possible to choose a slightly larger foam insert, I was unable to find anything that seemed close to the right size after I found these.  They fit inside the tire perfectly and the extra support they offer definitely improves the weight handling characteristics of the tires compared to no foam at all.  Note that you'll need to buy 2 sets of foams because they come in packs of 2.

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