Okay how many of you when changing a gauge wheel tire on the planter or drill actually take the time to test spin them before moving on to the next one.

 I'm in the process of putting on the RID tires and replacing the gauge wheel bearing and in the past I've had to change a few tires here and there and never thought all that much about this.

It seemed pretty straight forward as the bearing sits in indentations in each half of the wheel and should bottom out and self center when the wheel halves are tightened.

I found after getting a couple RID tires on and trying to shim them on the planter that they would be tight and loose and began looking at things a little closer. At first I thought perhaps I had a bent wheel half or a warped tire as I had carefully alternated tightening the bolts and things looked to be drawn together squarely.

Moral of the story never assume anything. I've found that starting with the outer wheel bolts first and getting them drawn tight a little at a time with a ratchet while spinning the wheel on the jig seems to allow you to do a much better in getting things together squarely. Once the outer ones are tight then draw up the inner 3 again with a ratchet. only use the impact to final tighten after you confirm things are still true.

You will probably need to let the video clip load fully and then hit play.

The first clip is where it was basically just put together and drawn up tight.

http://photos.imageevent.com/vprb/gaugewheelassembly/Gauge%20Wheel%20Wobble.wmv

While there is still a little variation on the second clip it's likely to tire or wheel half variations and at any rate it's much better than not checking things at all.

http://photos.imageevent.com/vprb/gaugewheelassembly/Gauge%20Wheel%20Straightened.wmv