tread direction ?

[Ulysses]

I see a lot of tires on 6x6 and 8x8 that are arranged on the same machine but with the treads in different directions. There doesn't seem to be any logic to it. I would have thought that at least the treads should be in the same direction. Can someone please enlighten me ? Thanks

[wedge]

OK here is my take on this. These machine need to run on top of the ground Not dick down !
Its for Flotation. So the best way to get this and Forward Bite ( in my opinion) would be to mount the front and middle tires to Cup the dirt under them and the Rear tires in the opposite Direction to Dig on through.
Make sense ?

[Mike]

Our amphibious machines run the tires backwards compared to non-amphibious ATVs since the backwards tire tread propels us in the water. The downside to this is that the tires themselves in most cases were designed to be run the other direction. In conditions where you aren't floating, tires pointing the forward, tire manufacturer intended direction will perform better. If you never float the machine that would be the way to get the best performance and it's the way we would prefer if they only swam with the tread in that direction. A compromise is to mix the direction of the tread. For many machines, the rear tires are the ones that do most of the propelling so you can run the rear tires backwards and the others forward. This gives you better performance in most conditions by simply sacraficing a little forward speed in the water.

[bakedalaskan]

Somewhere here in cyberspace someone did a tire speed test on the water in their 8 wheeled Argo. Their conclusion was to run 6 tires in the normal Argo direction and on the 3rd axle back to turn the tires around. In this test they did not loose any forward speed but were able to reverse in the water. I can confirm this to be true and is the way I have run my tires without tracks.

[wedge]

I Hate to disagree with Mike But it has always been said the reason for running the tires in the opposed direction wax for floatation of the aatv on all types of ground
That's why the manufacturer did it that way from the factory.
NOT WATER SPEED !

[jeffery9076]

I have a attex and have run duro in the correct way and backwards swimming and they did not do well in water at all ( just my opinion )
I think they hurt you in the aspect of losing momentum when trying to exit the water
(got stuck on exit) they were 22"
I now have 21" rawhides and they swim nice and I think I exit the water so much faster
(But get stuck in the mud eaiser)
Could be because tub is a little lower
The rawhides propel so much faster in water and I have them facing for swimming
Noticed I do have to correct steering more because the rawhides feel the slide off the path more.
Thought about changing the front tire around to see whether it helps steering or hinders swimming
The engine in the back of mine and I believe experimenting is the key

[SHOTGUN]

There are so many variables in this dicussion that makes the answer in my mind not abosolute. Tire style, size, application(terrian), vehicle weight and driving style are a few. Water speed would be important for some, mud, sand, rock,ect all present different variables. Do you only drive forward in the mud, then I would orientate the tires all in the "normal" position. Would you compromise some performance so you could back out also, you may run two forward two reverse. Do you have high wheel slippage allowing the tire to self clean or are the tires locked into the terrian. One article i read way back was that when Mickey Thompson was doing research for the Army, they found that in sand a chevron style tire mounted reverse actually helped. When the tires started to dig into the sand they would cup and throw sand ahead of the tire helping it not dig down as fast. I think the point of the manufacuters would be to allow a compromize for most situations. That is my 2 cents.