Update 26/sept/08
 

Ok well all of our stuff is in the house now, but man what a job trying to figure out where to put everything. We moved from a 4 bedroom appt into a 6 bedroom house, and we still have space issues. Oh well we will get it all figured out this weekend(I hope??). Anyway the Hobby room is packed full of goodies, including the Dubro balancer that I ordered. I put it together last night, and tried it out. It is a little bit whimpy for MT tires/wheels, and the adapter kit is pretty much useless for MT wheels. The tires barely fit between the end caps on the balancer, and the adapter is just too weak to hold MT size wheels. I still have a lot of work to do around the house in order to get things in order first, before I can commit some real time to the hobby room and see what I can work out with this thing. I believe that I can make it work for me, but I will have to come up with some sort of mounting shaft system to use with it in order to get it to work properly. The balancer seems ok, but for the money spent($28 kit & $18 adapter) Nearly $50 I would have rather made one myself from scratch. at any rate I will make it work once I get the time and come back with an update.

Unfortunately during setup last night we blew up one of our 42" plasma TVs. It is a Toshiba dual voltage which we have been using on 220v for the last two years, but when we plugged it into 120v here sparks shot out of the cord in several places and fried the power supply. It is supposed to be an auto voltage set, but we have to do a little research with the Base PX and see what we can come up with. According to the manual there were three models like this one made and two of them are 220v only. It looks like they put the wrong power supply into this set. $2000 down the tubes. That sucks. Oh well, such is life I guess.

congrats on your new house! but sorry to hear about your plasma. i would look into seeing if theres anyway to get that fixed.
but glad to hear that you havent forgotten about this thread. take your time, settle in and then report back with the mounting.

take care

Update 20/nov/08
 

Hey fellas I figured I might as well stop in and bring this thread up to date. First off I had the plasma checked out and believe it or not the TV was fine. The cord had shorted out and burst into flames, but no damage was done to the TV according to the repair man, and it is hanging up on the living room wall working just fine. Unbelievable...

About the Axial beadlock wheels?? After reading a lof of the replies and info on how everyone deals with their wheels I decided to try everything that I could in order to give my trucks the best wheels possible. So I took the wheels apart again and taped the inside of the tires with re-enforcing packaging tape as many have stated is needed to prevent ballooning. Then I put a thin bead of CA glue on the inserts/rims to make sure they do not shift during operation. Finaly I took the Dubro balancing kit that I purchased from T/H and salvaged what I could use, and built my own wheel balancer setup. The actual components that come with the kit are quite useful, but the stand and the adapter kit are just not big enough for MT wheels. So I improvised...

I cut a piece of stainless all-tread (about 6") and made up my own balancer shaft with a 17mm adapter for the Axial wheels and a couple of smooth polished rod ends to run on the balancer. The rod ends are actually from a book binder kit that I had laying around. Then I mounted the balancer brakets on the top of my steel Traxxas truck stand. It is easy to take the whole thing on and off of the stand in just minutes with a couple of wing-nuts. Using simple pinewood derby self adhesive metal weights (approx $2) which I placed on the inside of each rim. I balanced each wheel perfectly, and then pouring some hot-glue over each weight for holding power. I now see why this needs to be done. If you plan to spin your wheels at any kind of real RPMs you need to do this for sure. It keeps the vibration levels of your truck to a minimum, which can really adversly affect performance. Yea I know if you are a racer the extra weight probably will not be a positive aspect, but I am not a racer. I am looking forward to getting one of my trucks setup for high speed runs and maybe breaking some records. I have a dual Monoblock setup on one truck for added stability, and new RC Alloys shafts being custom made for it. I will try to get some photos of the balancer put up this weekend. Just thought I would share this info with everyone. Have a great day.

Update 20/feb/09
 

Well it has been a while since I visited this thread and thought that maybe I could finish up with how everything worked for me. As stated earlier in the thread I purchased the Dubro balancer kit (http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_...oducts_id/4870)
and made a few modifications of my own, but it actually works really well. I had to elliminate the mounting bracket and mount it directly onto my truck stand, and spread teh two units apart wide enough so it would hold the MT wheels easily.
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...E/27ba6a5c.jpg
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...E/757b0b80.jpg
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...E/caa0704a.jpg
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...E/56bfdf94.jpg

If anyone is serious about their projects this is a really good aspect of building the ultimate high power or high speed vehicle. So I am using the Axial beadlock rims. Taping whatever tires you decide to use, gluing the insert to the rim, and finally using whatever type of weights you may choose and hot gluing them on the inside of the rim after balancing the entire setup.

What I noticed while showing the boys how this is done, is that when you run your truck on the stand without balancing the wheels it vibrates like crazy and you really have to hang onto the truck so it does not fall off of your work area. When you do the same with a full set of balanced wheels installed it sits there without having to hold it in place. The difference is amazing. I have also added one more step since there have been a few complaints about the tires still comming off of the Axial rims, which is that I have placed some double sticky tape on the metal ring where it meets the tire surface. This should help to prevent the tire from slipping free from the bead and comming apart. This whole process takes some time, but it is surely worth the time in my opinion I now have 5 sets completed and one more on its way. I wish you all luck with your beadlock, tire, & balancing experiences. I hope that this thread helps.