My welding up alloy kerb damage pics

[8valve-craig]

I have had a set of 16"comp MO's sat in the shed for some time and havent bothered to re-furb them as one had extensive kerb damage. I was going to replace it with a new wheel but at nearly £200 each and none coming up second hand due to rare sizing (6x16, 4x100, et49) decided id have a bash at fixing it myself.

I knew the wheel was straight as i spun it on the balancer after removing the tyre so all the damage was cosmetic.

I read into it and found it was possible to mig weld ally so bought a reel of wire and set off,, I found a lot different to welding steel, Needing full power and maximum wire speed

This pic shows the extent of the damage, all cleaned up (ignore the small weld, was just setting up the welder and soon ground it off)

[8valve-craig]

Unfortunately i got a bit carried away and forgot to take any more pics until i was nearly finished...











All done with just a light skim of filler needed to smooth it all off then shape the flat edge, Very pleased with my efforts. Some people may say welding ally wheels is dangerous but im quite happy with it. Its not structural and not cracked so i will see how it balances up and most probably continue to use it

All comments welcome

[pugh125k]

wow that was one damaged alloy

good work

[8valve-craig]

wow that was one damaged alloy

good work

Yea i agree it was pretty F****d. Damage was caused in a roll over on previous vehicle (not me). I had to weld in a bead about 1/2" thick along about 10" of the rim

[nyzrox]

Nice work on that, kurbs are killers for alloys.

[MSG]

So you now qualify as a reconstruction surgeon for alloy wheels! Here is your degree MWC. which you can now use against your name (Master Wheel Craftsman)

[8valve-craig]

So you now qualify as a reconstruction surgeon for alloy wheels! Here is your degree MWC. which you can now use against your name (Master Wheel Craftsman)

Sounds great... thanks... Not something id want to do regular though... (fumes)

[jayporn]

Nice work

looks safe enough as its well above where the tyre bead sits. but i'd still worry about it breaking at 100mph causing complete devastation and mowing down a group of kittens, (joke)lmao

Did you need to use a different shielding gas like pure argon, or can you just use argoshield universal or co2?

[mattcorsa]

never seen sum1 ever weld a alloy wheel up b4 but tbh mate thats a realli good job fair play to ya mate i used cemical metal on my last set of wheel what i had on my nova lol

[8valve-craig]

Nice work

looks safe enough as its well above where the tyre bead sits. but i'd still worry about it breaking at 100mph causing complete devastation and mowing down a group of kittens, (joke)lmao

Did you need to use a different shielding gas like pure argon, or can you just use argoshield universal or co2?

Thanks mate,, I Just used A co2 bottle i had lying around.... I rekon it'l be ok, Im still gonna keep my eyes open for another, then i can just keep this one as a spare.

never seen sum1 ever weld a alloy wheel up b4 but tbh mate thats a realli good job fair play to ya mate i used cemical metal on my last set of wheel what i had on my nova lol

Thanks, I did consider chemical metal but then had horrible images of spending hours painting it only for the tyre machine to rip the repair right back out (195 - 40's are stiff as f**k to fit). At least this way i have seen the penetration for myself so can have a little more confidence in the wheel

I would never carry out the work on somebody else's wheel mind. (not without a watertight disclaimer)...

[hay_lewis_68]

looks awesome mate, i'll be sending you my kerbed wheels in future lmao

Did you need to use a different shielding gas like pure argon, or can you just use argoshield universal or co2?

it is recommended to use pure argon, as it helps keep it cooler than CO2 or argoshield.

[8valve-craig]

With regards to the gas, i got on quite fine with co2, i read through loads of pro's and con's,,, all seeming to contradict one another so just decided to make my own choice.

[mattcorsa]

fair play mate it is hard work with cemical metel aswell lol good work tho mate

[MSG]

I was just going to ask the same question about what gas you used, so co2 works just as good, but without trying argon, you can't say if you had got better results.
Its like me when I recently bought my first ever mig welder, I strated to practice using the fluxed wire, and that was a bad move, because the flux wire did not yield good results, the welds looked absolutely horrid, splatters everywhere, it looked more like the aftermath of a power station melt down rather than a welding job!

So I decided to give someone else to do my welding on my Manta, so he used my new Mig welder, and asked for the Gas bottle as well, I thyerefore changed to steel wire and attached the gas bottle, I did not exxperiment using the gas welding before for fear of running out of it, but just to make sure the welder loaded the steel wire Ok and the gas trigger worked, i did a small sample weld and I was absolutely amazed that it produced one of the best welds, but by now it was too late as I had committed to the guy doing the job!

But sadly this guy used only about 66mg of Co2 from a total contents of 390gm, to weld all the patches on my car, it needed quite a bit of welding, and his welding turned out to be complet horror! I am too ashamed to put pictures of it it on here, I could have definitely done much better than he did using the gas welding.

So I think if you tried argon for welding alloy, it may have yielded better results, its a question of trying it. I also noted that when using gas, you need a different rate of feed and current setting, usually a bit higher, and the sparks produced is much smaller and less blinding, and you can see what you are doing without looking directly at the bright flshing point, as the flashing point is much narrower and is hidden by the nozzle, wheras using a flux wire the flashing is much bigger and protrudes beyond the diameter of the nozzle and blinds you badly and you can't see what you are doing and so you have to wear a mask even just to do an inch long weld..I did not use a mask to do just an inch long weld and had absolutely no strain on my eyes as i did not look directly at the flash, as most of the flash was hidden beneath the nozzle.

[8valve-craig]

Wow, Big post. But just to re-iterate my point, welding ally is not my specialty. However i managed it, so im happy. No need to practice or experiment because the job is done.

[hay_lewis_68]

I was just going to ask the same question about what gas you used, so co2 works just as good, but without trying argon, you can't say if you had got better results.
Its like me when I recently bought my first ever mig welder, I strated to practice using the fluxed wire, and that was a bad move, because the flux wire did not yield good results, the welds looked absolutely horrid, splatters everywhere, it looked more like the aftermath of a power station melt down rather than a welding job!

So I decided to give someone else to do my welding on my Manta, so he used my new Mig welder, and asked for the Gas bottle as well, I thyerefore changed to steel wire and attached the gas bottle, I did not exxperiment using the gas welding before for fear of running out of it, but just to make sure the welder loaded the steel wire Ok and the gas trigger worked, i did a small sample weld and I was absolutely amazed that it produced one of the best welds, but by now it was too late as I had committed to the guy doing the job!

But sadly this guy used only about 66mg of Co2 from a total contents of 390gm, to weld all the patches on my car, it needed quite a bit of welding, and his welding turned out to be complet horror! I am too ashamed to put pictures of it it on here, I could have definitely done much better than he did using the gas welding.

So I think if you tried argon for welding alloy, it may have yielded better results, its a question of trying it. I also noted that when using gas, you need a different rate of feed and current setting, usually a bit higher, and the sparks produced is much smaller and less blinding, and you can see what you are doing without looking directly at the bright flshing point, as the flashing point is much narrower and is hidden by the nozzle, wheras using a flux wire the flashing is much bigger and protrudes beyond the diameter of the nozzle and blinds you badly and you can't see what you are doing and so you have to wear a mask even just to do an inch long weld..I did not use a mask to do just an inch long weld and had absolutely no strain on my eyes as i did not look directly at the flash, as most of the flash was hidden beneath the nozzle.

you want to be careful about not using a mask mate, even if you block the arc behind the torch, you will still get very bad sunburn on your face and neck, and risk getting arc eye (you can get it even with a mask) and its VERY painful. its like your eyes are being peeled also, if you wear contact lenses then your almost guaranteed to melt them into your eyeballs too. yummy

Wow, Big post. But just to re-iterate my point, welding ally is not my specialty. However i managed it, so im happy. No need to practice or experiment because the job is done.

thats a tiny post for MSG lmaolmao

[Th0m45]

2 of my alloys were badly curbed and slightly bent. a mate of mine tig welded them for me and im not in the process of cleaning them up aswell cracking work there budd

[MSG]

hay_lewis 68, thanks for reading my lenghty wots it! yea loads of rollox!! lol

Thanks mate ppoint taken seriously about wearing the mask, indeed I have now ordered one of them auto-darkening face masks, and that should help me a lot better in controlling the weld path, seeing where and what I am doing.


aplologeeeeeeeees for my previous lengthy post.

[hay_lewis_68]

your lengthy posts are great if you stop writing so much and start posting 2 words at a time then you may break the interwebz lmao

[8valve-craig]

I did not use a mask to do just an inch long weld and had absolutely no strain on my eyes as i did not look directly at the flash, as most of the flash was hidden beneath the nozzle.

Seriously mate, USE A MASK! arc eye is not in the slightest bit funny

[MSG]

your lengthy posts are great if you stop writing so much and start posting 2 words at a time then you may break the interwebz lmao

Gottcha .lmao