Tig welding alloy wheels

[anto44]

A rotten sill is an approved repair by the manufacturer. If you go to vw and tell them your sill is rotten they will sell you a replacement sill thats designed to be welded into place. They'll also give you guidelines on how the part should be welded in. Any qualified panel beater will have been trained on how to carry out that repair to a safe standard. If an alloy wheel has been welded then it is no longer CE approved for road use as it has been modified outside of the manufacturers guidelines. I regularly have to inspect cars on behalf of insurance companies and welded wheels are marked down as being dangerously defective, thats not down to my opinion that's the guidelines I have to follow.

 

[Gragson]

An outfit in the US called Kosman used to widen alloy wheels for bikes a while back, never popular as it was so expensive and you could probably kiss your insurance good bye - and the handling..

https://www.sportrider.com/widened-stock-wheels-going-wide#page-3

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Given that the OP hasn't come back to clarify, it's difficult to know exactly what he does, how and for whom.

 

[PhillipM]

As is a sill on a car but plenty drive around with rust holes in them with no catastrophic affects.

They are then welded up and deemed safe.

Theres a big difference in welding steel patches to welding heat treated/aged aluminium. Both in terms of weld strength and the haz.

 

[pressbrake1]

do some destructive tests

 

[MattH]

Theres a big difference in wrlding syeel patches to welding heat treated/aged aluminium. Both in terms of weld strength and the haz.

Indeed, but the simile does hold some water or maybe in this case air.

 

[PhillipM]

Indeed, but the simile does hold some water or maybe in this case air.

Well, not entirely, because anyone with any sense won't weld any of the modern boron based steel panels, they'll braze them, because it's much more appropriate. And the insurance firms tend to take a very dim view of anything but that. Just as I suspect they'd take a very dim view of a welded alloy but nobody mentions it...

 

[MattH]

Well, not entirely, because anyone with any sense won't weld any of the modern boron based steel panels, they'll braze them, because it's much more appropriate. And the insurance firms tend to take a very dim view of anything but that. Just as I suspect they'd take a very dim view of a welded alloy but nobody mentions it...

Yet people do.

 

[MattH]

Anyway, nuff of that.

I was only trying to point out that is it possible in some cases to weld an alloy without the world coming to an abrupt end.

Would I attempt it? No.
Would I have someone do it for me? No.

Is it illegal? No.

Is it possible? Yes.

Is it recommended? No.

 

[PhillipM]

As I said earlier, everyone gets away with it until the one time they don't.

 

[pressbrake1]

Anyway, nuff of that.

I was only trying to point out that is it possible in some cases to weld an alloy without the world coming to an abrupt end.

Would I attempt it? No.
Would I have someone do it for me? No.

Is it illegal? No.

Is it possible? Yes.

Is it recommended? No.

is dangerous No
does it work Yes
Are large critical castings routinely repaired Yes
Will there be an explosive failure No

 

[Richard.]

is dangerous No.
does it work Yes
Are large critical castings routinely repaired Yes
Will there be an explosive failure No

If your gonna post something then at least back it up with something.

In the earlier posts a guy called hotrodder put up a lot of information you should perhaps read through carefully as they were far more educated posts than what I’ve just quoted.

It can be dangerous. You cannot predict what is going to happen and when. If you tell me you can then please back it up with a nice explanation as to how you can predict that.

Nobody has said it cannot be done and nobody has said it isn’t done frequently but elements of risk will always be there if you weld on a wheel
Half the time your welding blind because it’s not often you actually know what your welding on.
These things are not just a lump of aluminium you know.

 

[chris pruteanu]

Just my 2 cents worth! I had a set of ABT sportsline winter wheels on a t4 van from a car that i broke for parts a few yeara ago, had a set of 5 and 3 of them were cracked rims with one having a previous repair (spare wheel)... I welded them and used them as winter wheels on a few cars and went on holiday in romania twice on them. 2 years ago i went back for xmas holidays and had an accident skidding on ice and mounted the pavement jumping over a tall curb... Result, 2 cracked wheels with chunks missing out of them and 2 buckled ones on the back. All my welds survived and the wheels broke on completely different position to the weld, they also balanced properly and ran true with minimal weights too...
I now weld every day at least a wheel, i have done many sprinter alloy wheels or truck rims and they hold fine... I also welded rims on sprinter wheels where tyres wear the edges and it needs rebuilding again in order to seal the wheel... I also welded many alloys repaired previously and they did held fine after i did repair them...

 

[pressbrake1]

If your gonna post something then at least back it up with something.

In the earlier posts a guy called hotrodder put up a lot of information you should perhaps read through carefully as they were far more educated posts than what I’ve just quoted.

It can be dangerous. You cannot predict what is going to happen and when. If you tell me you can then please back it up with a nice explanation as to how you can predict that.

Nobody has said it cannot be done and nobody has said it isn’t done frequently but elements of risk will always be there if you weld on a wheel
Half the time your welding blind because it’s not often you actually know what your welding on.
These things are not just a lump of aluminium you know.

Hes talking the rim edge not a cracked spoke(which id refuse to do) so to say so the structural architecture is intact. You can see from crashed wheels the rim fails before the wheel centre
Again the crack only becomes apparent when it has become a nuisance by letting air out You wouldn't catch me welding a motorcycle fork axle clamp for example

As far as telling what grade of aluminium alloy one isn't blind generally forged such as sparco will 6082 and general cast wheels will be Alsi11mg which can be seen cast in.

Im not recommending taking on such a job just because of insurance implications .

But I ask you, whats more dangerous a welded crack on a alloy wheel rim edge which may crack again and release air and give a slow puncture or a crossmember on a landrover towing 3.5t on the motorway which has been welded on with a migmate 130?

 

[Richard.]

But I ask you, whats more dangerous a welded crack on a alloy wheel rim edge which may crack again and release air and give a slow puncture or a crossmember on a landrover towing 3.5t on the motorway which has been welded on with a migmate 130?

Neither is really ideal. I don’t think I’d adopt either unless of course I had a mig with more guts then I’d happily weld the crossmember.
Cracks are unpredictable. I’ll stand by that statement. They can sit happily in non critical structural places and cause no ill effect and then a touch of heat can get them to run in directions you wouldn’t expect. I’ve seen it plenty of times not just on wheels but of variety of aluminium castings of all sorts of grades. I don’t disagree that in most cases the failure if it happens will be superficial and inconvenient at worst but there is chance it could be worse and that chance isn’t controlled by welding skill. You cannot weld on anything without making changes to the microstructure. Some things those changes can be harmless by way of using correct consumables, welding techniques and generally welding metals that are quite happy to be joined. Wheels are not one of them.

 

[premmington]

Anyway, nuff of that.

I was only trying to point out that is it possible in some cases to weld an alloy without the world coming to an abrupt end.

Would I attempt it? No.
Would I have someone do it for me? No.

Is it illegal? No.

Is it possible? Yes.

Is it recommended? No.

The above sums it up for me - I own a car repair garage - we do not do welded repairs on wheels for customers.


Another point is: To pass an MOT you can only do welded repairs on parts of suspension that are not removable (if your subframe is rotted thru you can't weld it up - you need to bolt a new one on the vehicle).

HGV's will fail a plating test - for welded "super single" wheels - but a car will pass an MOT with a welded wheel.

 

[fizzy]

There are a very large number of companies offering alloy wheel repair and have been for years. If it was such a problem I think we would have heard about it by now and rules would have been introduced.

I can understand people's reluctance not to touch them however.

A few years ago I had an accident in my Discovery 1. A woman came out of a side road into the side of me. I swerved onto the wrong side of the road and she still hit me - said her foot slipped off the clutch. Not a very hard impact - she hit the rear wheel - no body damage at all but she burst my tyre. I was really ill with flu and the spare had been used a few days earlier so I was recovered home.

I would have been happy with £80 for a new tyre but her insurance company contacted me and said they would have to take the car in in case of wheel damage. They gave me a top of the range Freelander 2 which was awesome. We had loads of ice and snow that year and it was Christmas time - my Disco ended up in the garage for 3 weeks before they could even look at it due to all the other accidents caused by the weather.

When they finally inspected the car they said the wheel may have hidden damage so they would have to replace it. Then it turned out the wheel was no longer made so they bought a complete new set!

I had the hire care for about 4 months in total - no wonder our insurance is so high.

Oh and I had the 4 good wheels back which I sold on Ebay!

 

[pressbrake1]

The material is a very 'weldable' grade of alloy and with low pressure diecast wheels grain structure is fairly random. forged wheels with high(even after heat treat) are full of internal stresses.
I remember the 'braid' wheels used to crack even with no impact.

Only a metallurgist can offer the truth, a welding machine salesman or a thick metal basher such as myself cannot and I did my degree in engineering twenty three years ago so my internal sd card is vague on such matters

 

[premmington]

There are a very large number of companies offering alloy wheel repair and have been for years. If it was such a problem I think we would have heard about it by now and rules would have been introduced.

I can understand people's reluctance not to touch them however.

A few years ago I had an accident in my Discovery 1. A woman came out of a side road into the side of me. I swerved onto the wrong side of the road and she still hit me - said her foot slipped off the clutch. Not a very hard impact - she hit the rear wheel - no body damage at all but she burst my tyre. I was really ill with flu and the spare had been used a few days earlier so I was recovered home.

I would have been happy with £80 for a new tyre but her insurance company contacted me and said they would have to take the car in in case of wheel damage. They gave me a top of the range Freelander 2 which was awesome. We had loads of ice and snow that year and it was Christmas time - my Disco ended up in the garage for 3 weeks before they could even look at it due to all the other accidents caused by the weather.

When they finally inspected the car they said the wheel may have hidden damage so they would have to replace it. Then it turned out the wheel was no longer made so they bought a complete new set!

I had the hire care for about 4 months in total - no wonder our insurance is so high.

Oh and I had the 4 good wheels back which I sold on Ebay!

That is very true - there is a large element of the motortrade that will weld up wheels - there is also a large number of people who will sell second hand tyres as well.

You wanna see how they pack - stretch one tyre over another then another - to reduce the volume for "container packing".

I have never seen a tyre with "PART-WORN" label on it - in 4mm letters - but this is law as well.


Personally - The DVSA should push this (welded wheels) to a failure at MOT testing. Tyre valves fail for being perished.

 

[fizzy]

I don't see the problem with part worn tyres - I have used them many times. After all if you buy a used car and the tyres have loads of tread do you change them straight away? TBH I would prefer a part worn premium tyre to a new ying tong iddle i po any day!