2kjettaguy

A friend of mine has a cracked 17" rim. The rim is a Millie Miglia Spyder which is cast aluminum. It has a crack in it about 1" long on the edge of the rim. The crack is perpendicular to the edge of the rim.

Has anyone here ever welded an aluminum wheel? Any tips?

I was just planning on cleaning it really well and welding it with an 1/8" tungsten and 5053 rod. I would need to file down the weld in the inside of the rim so that it doesn't affect the tire sealing.

I have balance and fequency control. Any auggestions for cast aluminum?

Evan

asianpoet

yes you can weld aluminum, you can braze it as well.. if it was minor crack...
theres a shop off route 1 north towards laurel (the name eludes me at this time) they welded mine back up. Im not sure if cast al would be any different though.

2kjettaguy

Well, I welded the rim today. It came out pretty damn good actually. The material was not as soft as I thought it would be, but it was airy. Lots of pinholes. It was filthy as hell too. I sanded all the silver paint off the whole area and ran acetone down into the crack to clean it out.

I tried to penetrate really deep on the outside of the rim (inside of the wheel) so that I could file it smooth with the contour of the outside of the rim. On the inside I laid a nice bead which will balance out.

I had to go back and fill a pinhole and ended up opening up the crack on the outside after I had filed it smooth.

Pretty good for a beat, cheap wheel I'll take a pic tonight or tommorow.

Evan

SDA Vtec Civ

Just a quick question? did you drill the end of the crack before you welded the rim, so it does re-crack/spider?

Lamchop0000

awesome, got any pictures?

splitime

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SDA Vtec Civ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Just a quick question? did you drill the end of the crack before you welded the rim, so it does re-crack/spider?</TD></TR></TABLE>

This is a good question. As he said, if you use a small drill and drill at the absolute end of the crack, it'll help prevent future cracks starting to form.

AspectIndustries

pics!

2kjettaguy

I didn't. I welded back into the wheel about 3/8" further than the visible start of the crack. If it cracks again... oh well they are crappy wheels If I ever have to do another one I'll try to hole trick.

Evan

2kjettaguy

Pics of the finished wheel!










Evan

Italia311

Same thing happend to me except I had cracks in all 4 wheels. Thankfully my step dad is VP of a Forging company I got then all re done for free. ******* expensive **** though.

Nice welds man.

91TSiGuy

What size machine were you using to do that? I was welding a rim myself tonight with a Lincoln PT185 and either kept overheating the machine or tripping the breaker here at my work. I had it at 185 amps, 1/8th pure tungsten. Either way, I don't think I managed too good of penetration in my attempt.

2kjettaguy

I was using a Dynasty 200DX. I had an 1/8" tungsten in at 125 amps. I probably could have gone hotter but cast aluminum loves to just explode on you so I was playing it safe. I had the machine set of 125hz and 47% balance if that helps...

That's my 'normal' aluminum setting.

.RTErnie

91TSiGuy...you're machine isn't powerful enough...what you need to do is put your wheel in your oven and preheat it to like 500 degrees...put on your mittins and take it out to the shop...set it down and get to welding. it will take all 180-200 amps that your machine can put out to weld that hole up. Also if you bevel the crack out so you can get DEEP penetration that will help as well. good luck.

Niles

91tSiGuy: I have that same machine, if everything was at room temperature and cleaned, how long were you're welds? Its only got a 15% duty cycle at that amperage DC, I think less on AC, so you can only go for 90 seconds out of every 10 minutes without some wierd stuff happening (I think surging and other unhappiness.) I keep a book by my welder when I'm welding the heavy stuff
I'm with RTErnie, bevel the crack, and do it in multiple passes if need be.

jaydmcrx

I'd find out what kind of aluminum that is before you go out and rip on it. Most likely if its a cast wheel it is a 3000 series aluminum. It may be very soft there now. It will prolly bend in the near future if you are not careful.

2kjettaguy

It was already bent there, hence the crack.

If these weren't POS wheels I would have done some more research. You guys all had info after I did the welding doh!

91TSiGuy

RTErnie and Niles,

For preheating I took my propane torch, clicked it on, aimed it, and walked away from the rim a while to let it warm up. My crack was a bit farther in than the one in 2kjettaguy's case. It ran parallel to the rim edge, but at the bottom of the bead lip. The previous person must have bent the rim in, then my friend who owns these now heated it up and bent the lip back out but it seperated and cracked.

I told him the situation I was experiencing while attempting it and how he'll probably need it redone elsewhere by someone with a larger machine. (definitely don't want this going on someone's car just yet)