I am a new first time owner,, I bought a 1988 maxIV 23 kolher ,,I got rid of the 21" tires and bought a new set of 26x12x12 terra's right from RI (its a 20 min drive away) Does anyone have any tips how to make heat the rear well for the final two tires to fit,,,,
I was going to try an 8" OD piece of pipe 10" long cut in half and a bottle jack with a lot of heat?????
What heats the plastic the best?????
Welcome to the site. The 26" tires should fit without any modification on your max unless the lower tub has sagged over the years. If that's the case you may want to lift the max up by the sides of the lower tub and slowly heat the whole tub so that it goes back to being level or leave it like that outside in the sun for a while.
Otherwise to answer your question, I found the best thing to use to heat the tub is a small propane powered torch. An acetylene torch was a little too much for me but perhaps I wasn't delicate enough. To form the tub over the tires I drew a semi circle on a piece of plywood that was the same diameter as the tires and cut it out. Repeat that several more times until you have enough plywood to nail together to make a template that matches the width of your tub. Then with the tire removed, slowly start heating the tub above the tire from the outside. Heat a little on the inside and then the outside once more. Once it is a little pliable, jack the wood template up into the body.
You can see the template that I used for my wife's Max IV laying on the floor in this picture. The second picture shows the finished product.
It is the semi-circular piece of wood with the black marks on it near the center axle. I ran out of plywood so I ended up having a small template so I had to do it a couple of times side by side to form the entier width of the tub but it still worked. The only trick to the whole process is that you have to leave the plywood form jacked up into the tub overnight. I tried doing one tire, waiting and hour and then doing the next one and it worked. But when I came back the following day the tub had sagged back down some. If I let it sit and cool completely overnight everything stayed in place.
I think a few other members have had good luck reshaping their tubs by letting the air out of their tires and just laying a piece of plywood on top of the tire. Then air the tires back up, and then heat up the tub from the inside.
Hope that helped and again, welcome to the site.
Mike
Crackpot Cruiser
sooo you wanna get rid of the 21s ?? are they any good yet ??
He who has not cruised the back country in a 6x6 , has not lived life to it's fullest
A Mans level of mechanical education directly corresponds to the level pain suffered while getting it
I just reshaped my Max IV last week to fit some Vampire ASXs. Two more points to add to Mike's instructions that may help:
1. The tub material gets soft really fast. I used a thermal laser temperature probe to see what the melting point was and it stayed pretty solid until 300F and then went soft way fast. And,
2. A regular 500watt cheap rectangular halogen worklight with the guard removed, positioned about 3-4 inches under the target area takes about 4-5 minutes at about 65F to bring the area up to bending temp. The light's broad surface area nicely matches the size of the area you need to bend, is controlled, and provides uniform heat.
Wow thanks for the quick response,,,,I started on one thing and now my list is a mile long,,,but i am doing everything right.... I found that all the axle bolts have lots of play ,so i drilled the 7/16 out to 1/2'' and replaced all 12 with grade 8 bolts with nylock nuts,,,,,,,
Also have you ever had an issue with the clevis pins on the tranny having a ton of play,,,if so what was a good fix??
Ill post pics of my progress when i get time...
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