fastazzraptor said:
it sounds like there are rocks or something rolling around in my stock tires. what is that??
Space Monkey Poop?
Seriously, the explanations are "all over the road". Mine doesn't have enough hours on it for that much dirt to have gotten inside the tires. Besides, I realize they are low-pressure and all, but they are still higher pressure than the atmosphere, so if an opening occurred that was large enough to let dirt in, the higher pressure and smaller molecule air would be escaping, not sucking in dirt/dust.
My seat of the pants guess is that they are for balancing. Different size beads would make sense so they would automatically arrange themselves per that particular tire's balancing needs.
Here's a site that shows different styles of beads, and they are not uniform at all:
http://www.counteractbalancing.com/compare.htm
The ones in the Raptor sound larger, to me. My guess is that they are adequate for balancing an offroad vehicles low pressure, small diameter tire.
Other than that, I dunno?