Beadlock capable ring issue

[Something Wild]

I noticed the other day when airing up that the little notch in the beadlock capable ring was not lined up with the valve stem on 4/5 of my wheels. I have a factory Badlands Sasquatch but bought it used and rings are black. Not sure if previous owner bought aftermarket, painted, or took from a Wildtrak.

I was trying this afternoon to remove one of the rings to see if I could get them lined up but half of the bolts would not budge, and a couple of those started to strip the torx grooves on the bolt head.

I was using the 3/8 ratchet and torx bit that was included with the Ford Performance accessory tool kit, no breaker bar or impact.

Leads me to two questions:
-Will I even be able to rotate these to get lined up or are these a defect?
- How the heck am I supposed to get these stripped bolts out now?

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[RagnarKon]

You need Torx 45 to remove the beadlock rings. If you are using the Torx Plus 40 socket included in the Bronco branded tool roll... that's the wrong tool. You need to use the Torx 45 allen key. They also have threadlocker on them, which unfortunately makes them exceedingly easy to strip if you use the wrong tool.

On the bolts you already stripped... you'll probably have to use some heat to soften the threadlocker and hope for the best. Just not too much heat, otherwise it may impact the black finish on the rings itself. Maybe upsize to T-50 or TP-45 if it'll fit, and if all else fails... drill it out.

If it helps... you are definitely not the first person that has encountered this issue.

 

[Bschurr]

@RagnarKon crushed this reply! And, Ford really didn’t do themselves any favors with this funky set up.

 

[Neps]

Step 1 penetrating oil
Step 2 penetrating oil
Step 3 wait a few days
Step 4 try to loosen 1 bolt, if it moves apply penetrating oil and re-tighten it to original position and move on to the next bolt. Repeat until you get all the bolts to move, then start to loosen a little bit at a time.

I had a few bolts that would not loosen, but I was able to tighten them ever so slightly. I reapplied the oil and a few days later I was able to loosen all of them (except for one I had to drill).

Applying heat is helpful but can be difficult on painted surfaces, a heat gun (not too hot) is about as hot as you can go without risk to the painted surfaces and the tires.

A few more tricks are:
- heat the surfaces, then hold ice on the bolt head. Immediately after the ice apply force to see if the bolt will move. Sometimes the thermal contraction can help break a bolt loose.
- find an extra set of hands and have someone tap (not too hard) on the end of the breaker bar while applying force to rotate the bolts. Just a few taps to see if the shock helps to loosen things up.

Time for the penetrating oil to work and patience are your friend, poor tools and impatience can make a mess of things.

If all else fails a shop can help you get them out, although the bolts most likely will need to be replaced.

 

[Something Wild]

All good points, I appreciate the feedback.
I’m still curious about the bolt placement or clock position on the wheel. Looking at other factory wheel pics, the bolts are centered or in line with each spoke. Mine are not.

stock photo vs my wheel:

 

[RagnarKon]

All good points, I appreciate the feedback.
I’m still curious about the bolt placement or clock position on the wheel. Looking at other factory wheel pics, the bolts are centered or in line with each spoke. Mine are not.

stock photo vs my wheel:

Each wheel has 24 evenly-spaced threaded holes to support real fully functional beadlock rings.

These rings are just trim pieces, but you can use any of those 24 holes to install them. The previous owner likely bought and installed the black trim rings, or they traded rings with a Wildtrak owner, or... who knows. I guess for all we know these could be actual Wildtrak wheels and the rings were just installed wrong at the factory.

 

[Something Wild]

Each wheel has 24 evenly-spaced threaded holes to support real fully functional beadlock rings.

These rings are just trim pieces, but you can use any of those 24 holes to install them. The previous owner likely bought and installed the black trim rings, or they traded rings with a Wildtrak owner, or... who knows. I guess for all we know these could be actual Wildtrak wheels and the rings were just installed wrong at the factory.

Excellent, thanks again. I didn’t realize there were 24 total holes but makes sense. Now I just need to get these dang things off and rotated.

 

[Gtrekker]

All the above recommendations are all good.

As far as the alignment... it looks like the bolts are not factory so I would imagine it was off before an the ring was not installed in the correct position to the tire stem.

Good Luck...

 

[TK2MEGSE]

So I picked up some Sasquatch wheels from eBay months ago and when trying to get tires mounted to them this week there were 2 issues:
1. The shop didn't want to mount tires to them until the beauty rings were removed
2. They couldn't get the bolts out "safely" (2 bolts stripped and unsure if they came that way or the shop isn't telling me what happened.)

Long story short - I got them all out at home (very carefully by hand), and at this point I don't believe any threads were stripped, but the T45 head of the 2 bolts are shot. One came out by wrapping the T45 socket with some aluminum foil lol, but I had to use a dremel and chisel on 1 of them COMPLETELY destroying the head in the process.

I see A LOT of threads on this so I tried to pick the most recent.

My question is: Has anyone found good replacement bolts for these beauty rings, or is everyone sticking with the anti seize soaked OEM replacements when they fail because there's no solid alternative?

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