Mismatched wheels

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

A 1" difference in diameter is much larger than I would recommend for this purpose.

Agreed.

However, we've done this before, with a not-too-difficult proviso, that can make it work perfectly:

The trick is to change the belting / chain / gears (whatever it is that connects your center axle to the outer axles) so that the linear speed of the wheels is the same. This is a matter of adjusting the pulley / sprocket / gear sizes for the different-sized wheels. Essentially, you'll have a different reduction ratio to the 9" wheels than you would to the 8" wheels. In theory this is easy.

In reality, it's a little trickier (but not too much), in that you need to source (or make) pulley / sprocket / gear sizes that give the desired ratios. However, that's not an unsolvable problem.