History Safety beads on wheels

I'm having a set of wheels reversed and chromed, Wheel Smith won't use the hoop on my wheels because they're spot welded on instead of riveted, so they're putting new hoops on and they have the safety bead on them. So I was wondering when the safety bead came around and when did it become popular or seen regularly? When did aftermarket companies start using it?

 

I just found out that the rims on 1960 Cadillac don,t have safety bead so there's a starting point.

 

Safety beads came about when tires went tubeless.

 

Tubeless tires have been around since the 20s, but came into widespread use in the mid-50s, pretty much becoming standard on American cars. The 'safety bead' was developed in the late 50s and adopted as an SAE design in the early 60s, but wasn't 'required' until the late 70s, although it was adopted by pretty much every manufacturer by the late 60s. In terms of steel wheels, by 68 pretty much every wheel featured the safety bead although you may or may not find them on all cast wheels until a bit later. You won't find them on any wheel from the 50s, the first ones I recall seeing were in 62-63 or thereabouts...

 

Awesome, thank you.

 

I was just a kid working at an old Humble gas station in the early '60s and I broke down a flat tire on a Plymouth with the safety rim and managed to get the rim inside of the tire. We didn't have the new fancy air powered stuff and I ended up having to cut the tire off with a hacksaw. I guess the safety rim has been around since 1957 Plymouths.

 

I realise this is an older thread however my query relates to the topic.

Over the years I have heard anecdotes about the time when tubeless tyres were introduced (which coincided with the introduction of rims with the additional safety bead rolled into them ) that tyre outlets in the quest to promote the new tubeless tyre would promote conversions to original rims by taking your rims and roll the extra bead in them to run tubeless.

Does anyone out there have any recollection of this process and how it was done?

A further question would be , does anyone do this today?

As to when they were introduced ? I have some rims of a 1953 Plymouth Cranbrook and they have the safety bead rolled into them.

 

I can't tell you a year of when saftey beads started but I think I saw them on the out side beads first..

 

guess im a real dumbass but what the heck is a safety bead??

 

Rolled area just inside the "outer" bead that helps keep tire against outer bead if deflated. Mopar started using this style in the early '40s, (although the idea may have been around before that) so it predates widespread use of tubeless tires by a few years.

 

it's a little ridge on the rim, located on the inboard side of the bead, designed to keep the tire bead from being able to move.



my 55 chevy and my 59 edsel both came from the factory with tubeless tires, with no safety bead.

 

Tetanus..it the surface on a chrome rim that rusts first.

 

I have a pair of Sears & Roebuck Raders from the 60's? that have the safety bead on the inner but not the outer bead.

Gary

 

ah i see. Thanks