› Pro-line Pro-forge Faultline Wheels

Before you can install the wheel into the tire, you have to remove the bead-lock rings from each side. Pro-line only installs two screws to keep them in place, so it doesn’t take long to remove them. The rims don’t come with vent holes, so you’ll want to vent them by drilling some holes or vent the tires before you assemble them. Once the rim is inside the tire, you have to align the bead of the tire with the wheel. I have mounted a lot of tires on bead-lock rims in my time, and these rims made getting the bead in the rim very easy. This is due to the larger than normal bead opening on the wheel and the taper on the outside of the wheel. I pushed the bead of the tire into the wheel and placed the ring on top. As I pressed down on the bead-lock ring, the tire slid into place and I was easily able to get two screws placed in the ring to secure the tire. Since I was going to have to tighten 128 screws total, I decided to use my power screwdriver to get the job done. The nice thing about using a power screwdriver with metal wheels is that you don’t have to worry about stripping out the tapped holes—something that can happen easily with a plastic wheel. It took about six minutes to assemble each wheel, so the total time to get them done was 24 minutes, which is a little shorter than what I have spent on other beadlock wheels. One thing that I noticed while putting the rings on was that the paint on the rings caused the hole to be slightly undersized, which caused the screws to dig in and interfered with the screws threading properly in the rim. Installing them onto my Vaterra Ascender was a breeze; they fit with no problems at all. For those who own a Traxxas TRX-4, the wheels without brass weights fit, but the brass weights are in the portal covers and didn’t allow me to bolt the wheels up. With the wheels on my Ascender, I went out to my favorite crawling spot. The weight of the heavier aluminum wheels (compared to plastic) and extra ounces up front with the brass weights improved climbing and crawling performance considerably. My Ascender was much more stable, especially when side hilling, and the front end didn’t come up during extreme climbs.

FINAL WORD

I was surprised when Pro-line announced that they’d be coming out with aluminum wheels for scale trucks. They’ve made some of the most detailed and durable plastic wheels out there for years, and aluminum wheels wasn’t something that I would have expected. The Pro-forge Faultline wheels are perfectly machined, are easy to assemble, and have a great look. The optional bolt-on brass weights are a nice touch. The only bummer is that the wheels aren’t vented, and I had a slight crossthreading issue due to the powder coat on the bead-lock rings. In the end, those two issues weren’t a problem for me, so I guess it’s not really a big deal. —Kevin Hetmanski

SOURCE

Pro-line prolineracing.com

I installed the Faultline on my Vaterra Ascender, and they really do a great job of enhancing the performance and the look of my truck.

The wheels come two to a package, and the bead-lock rings are held in place with two button-head screws.

The bead fits the rim perfectly and didn’t require any adjustments to get the combo installed.

The optional brass weights attach to the Pro-line hex adapter and take up a lot of space inside the wheel.

If you don’t have a six-lug adapter for the wheels, you can pick up a set of aluminum ones from Pro-line.