Michael Benno

Jerry Feather

Why don't you drill them out and tap for bigger bolts.

dr bob

Or have spacer rings made. Drill and tap those for the bolts. Weld the rings into the barrels. Gets you the right offsets and solves the thread pull-out problem at the same time.

Michael Benno

Thanks everyone for the good information and leads.

Here is my research so far....

I've talked with two well known wheel refinishers (Skips Wheel Werks in Portland and ETmags in California) and they both came back with the same conclusion. The wheels would not be safe if repaired and would not be worth the expense of moving the faceplates to a new barrel. The existing drums are cast so repairing the threads with helicoil or Timeserts would may not hold. It may be good for occasional driving but not hard driving or track use which I do from time to time. Rotating the faceplates and drilling new holes brought up concerns with overall strength and liability of wheel failures. Skip acknowledged he was not an engineer but felt that adding more holes may further weaken the drums.

I suppose I could research a replacement drum or as RDK in OKC suggested use 3 piece rim. @RDK in OKC, how much did that cost?

Jerry Feather

Are those places you are consulting with also in the business of selling wheels?

Speedtoys

You're suggesting they're trying to screw him, just because the sell wheels but are also very knowledgable sources for -this- type of issue?

RKD in OKC

It was $250 per wheel.

Jerry Feather

No, not exactly, Jeff, but pretty close. And, what you have to suggest about them being ". . . very knowledgable (sic) sources for -this- type of issue," is clearly wrong, since neither one of them seems to me to have a clue. I suspect that based on what they both have said they have probably never even seen the need for this kind of repair. Their comment that the helicoils and timeserts "may not hold" clearly says to me that they have no idea. And for them both to say that drilling additional holes "may" further weaken the wheels totally fails to consider that if they do have wheels in stock for sale, or to the extent that they might have ever seen 2 or 3 part wheels,they seem to have forgotten that most of them have either 30 or 40 bolt holes in them rather than the mere 15 with these wheels. They may not be trying to "screw" our guy, but they sure seem to me to be feeding him a bunch of BS.

Jim M.

IIRC both timecerts and helicoil are stronger than the plain original material and timecerts stronger than helicoil. Looking at my helicoil kit it would not fit along the barrel of the inner wheel half. I would recommend timecerts! Talk to a machine shop, they deal with these type problems all the time.

NelaK

Everyone is going to have their own personal biases towards a problem. A place that focuses on selling lots of rims and maintenance style repairs will probably write them off. A place that does custom fabrication work will probably look at them and think they're perfectly fine.

I've seen some pretty badly damaged rims repaired and I honestly don't see any fatal damage there. There is no damage to anything structural. The threads can be possibly repaired, new holes and threads created, or a welder can simply make them one piece rims. Any of those could work and the welding would probably make them even stronger in the end.

DeWolf

Showed to this to a friend last night who is an engineer / fabricator. He said if it were him he would alloy weld the holes, machine off the excess, re-drill and tap new threads in a different locations. And then went on to say "just use Keyserts and be done withe it".

Speedtoys

Do you build and repair custom multi piece wheels?

Im sorry if I got my experts all mixed up.

granprixweiss928

I second Jeffs recommendation of ET wheels. They sell wheels- yes- but they are their own brand, manufactured in house for the hot rod market. They dont sell other brands. They do repair wheels.

Jeff and I have been there, you walk in, its the hole in the wall kind of shop, a bit messy, metal shavings all over. but full of wheel parts, lathes, milling machines, and two HUGE cnc machines- one is a HAAS.

They are a legitimate wheel expert and rebuilder. They rebuilt my custom, one off set of wheels on the Mongoose DMC.

Last time we were there, there was a Porsche 935 race car wheel rim- about 14" wide, that they had just repaired. they can cast a new wheel i you need one for your 1970s March F1 vintage race car.

While I know this may not help in the situation of the original poster. others may read this. Also if Scott and Skip both say its not a good idea to repair due to not safe, Id listen to them and get other wheels.

Mark

DeWolf

My friend who seen this last night just called me and asked if where the bolt holes are is a lip, and if that's the case, make them like a three piece wheel and drill right through and use high tensile bolt and nut. You'd need to take the tire off to check.

Michael Benno

Here you can see where the valve hole comes through, the surface is angled making it impossible to secure a nut.