Can You Repair Alloy Wheel Crack
You knocked bigger dents and cracks out of a what s typically a strain-hardening or simplelow ductility cast alloy with no trouble with a block of wood.
Can you let me know your secret because you ll save us a lot of money in replacing compomotives, cause every time we try it they just snap off
Knocked plenty of dents out of steel wheels, but there s plenty on here who seem to think cast aluminium behaves and can be welded just the same as pressed steel wheels, they don t, and can t.
You can get away with cosmetic repairs because most wheels are overengineered, but I can point you towards many multi-coded welders who would turn you away the minute you mentioned it for any stressed area.
As for what is going to fail, you have a cyclically loaded part, under-going both high frequency and often high amplitude vibrations, probably pulling over 200g s of force at the rims at 70mph, made from a material that has a finite useful life to start with, that you ve just put a weld in that is half the strength of the parent metal, probably full of lots of tiny cracks, all acting as stress concentrators.
All on a safety critical part.
Now, if it was a classic rim that you can t get replacements for, and you take it to a specialist - and no, I don t mean the fly-by-night powdercoaters that have popped up everywhere - I mean somewhere that will take a sample of your wheels, send it off for a lab analysis, order in the appropriate filler materials when the report comes back, preheat the whole wheel in an oven, grind it back, weld it, post heat it to stop the microcracks, and then send it off to be heat treated to restore as much strength as possible and minimise the effects of the HAZ area from the welding, then crack check the weld, that s fine.
You really think your 50-a-wheel specialists are doing that to save you the extra 40 it would cost you for a new wheel. If a weld repair is carried out correctly, which most often it is not, tig welding needs a specialist and experienced welder to be done right. But if it is and the wheel has not been buckled the weld will not crack at all. BMW repair services have there cracks welded -
So how come these companies have been doing it for years and there s nobody on this thread saying they had a problem with a welded wheel. If these companies were so incompetent then there would be a stream of people saying don t weld it, buy a new one, you know what PH is like
The company I mentioned must be refurbishing 100 or more wheels a week, they get business from dealers and small garages as well as individuals. There must be 1000 s of cars running around on welded wheels with no mention in magazines, from trading standards or anywhere in fact of the risks/issues/dangers.
I agree that major repairs to wheels are not sensible but these companies aren t doing that kind of repair. . . they are welding cracked rims that were damaged by potholes, not replacing hubs.
If a weld repair is carried out correctly, which most often it is not, tig welding needs a specialist and experienced welder to be done right. But if it is and the wheel has not been buckled the weld will not crack at all. BMW repair services have there cracks welded -
Alloy Wheel Repair Service. Alloy Weldcraft specialise in the repair of alloy wheels. Badly damaged alloy wheels, cracked, buckled, bent, chipped or ripped wheels can.
Anyone ever had a cracked alloy welded?
Alloy Wheels Refurbishment Repairs. this fracture sometimes grows to become a larger crack and can begin to open up and Buckled Alloy Wheel Repair.
Welding strength, aluminium, stainless, magnesium ALLOY WHEEL REFURBISHMENT ALLOY WHEEL REPAIR SPECIALIST t:01555 841000.
April 16, 2001. Alloy Wheel Repair: Scratched, Bent and Maybe Even Cracked Wheels Can Be Saved Article and photos by George Achorn. A set of large alloy wheels can.
