Damaged rim - repair or buy?

With a quiet ride on a good road, the rim will last a long time. But such a coincidence in the vastness of the Russian Federation is a rarity. And therefore, the deadline for replacing this part may come suddenly, which will be facilitated by a pothole with sharp edges, a curb that you ran into too quickly and then repented of a rash act. But what to do when an unpleasant incident has already occurred? A car enthusiast faces a dilemma: buying a new disk or repairing an old one. If you choose the second option and want to get a corrected working and safe product, you need to take into account a number of nuances.

Why You Shouldn't Drive on a Damaged Drive

With large defects, further operation threatens with the complete destruction of the product, which is most likely to happen when driving on a bad road or hitting an obstacle. If the damage is minor, other troubles are coming:

• ? wheel imbalance leading to steering wheel vibrations and rapid tread wear
  
• ? a jam in the edge of the rim leads to the passage of air: the tire will have to be constantly pumped up
  

In such cases, it is more reasonable to show the disc to a specialist in order to decide whether the product needs to be repaired or whether a new one will have to be bought. It is quite difficult to implement the latter option if the disc is light-alloy and has an original design. It is unlikely to find exactly the same product and you will have to buy four pieces, which will cost a pretty penny. The first step is to determine if repairs can be done.

When a disk is unrecoverable

Damage can be conditionally divided into several types - cracks, chipping fragments and jams. In the presence of the first type of damage, it is highly not recommended to make repairs if the defects are:

• ? in the area of ​​​​the base of the spokes at the hub
  
• ? near the holes for the studs or mounting bolts
  

After repairing such damage by welding, it is impossible to guarantee the continued safety of the product. And its use is risky.



If damage has appeared in the center of the disc or on the rim, it is not recommended to use welding or heating during the restoration procedure. When using these methods, the load is concentrated in the weakest places. When driving on poor-quality roads, the disc can easily collapse, which at high speed is fraught with an accident.

With severe defects in the inner part and intact front, you may be offered a “super option” - to weld the back side from the donor disk. This is also a very risky method: it is impossible to predict what will happen to such a product in the future. Proposals of this kind must be flatly rejected. There is only one option here - buying a new part.

roller rolling

The purpose of the procedure is to return the disk to the correct geometric shape using a special machine. Steel and light-alloy products can be repaired by this method. During the operation, the rollers roll over the damaged area or the entire rim. If the disc is steel, it may be heated, for light-alloy products this is unacceptable, because the internal structure (crystal lattice) of the material is violated.



Simple defects are corrected manually with constant control on machine equipment with the help of special tools.



Rolling is used for relatively small damages, but if they are significant, straightening is preliminarily performed using hydraulic equipment. A similar option is used when restoring cast, conventional steel and, in some cases, forged wheels.



The cost of rolling depends on the diameter of the product and the material of its manufacture. Starts from 500 rubles.

hydraulic straightening

Requires special equipment that will allow you to straighten dents, regardless of their location. The machine has a lot of stops and jacks. In the course of work there is a constant control by means of a measuring needle.



The deformed disk is minimally affected, since no heat is used, the internal structure of the material remains unchanged. At the same time, the pressure exerted on the product is constantly regulated, depending on the nature and severity of the damage.

Argon welding

It can be used to eliminate cracks formed, for example, on spokes-beams. Although theoretically, with the help of argon welding, any damage can be repaired, up to the fixation of a completely broken element. However, no one will give a guarantee for such work, and the responsible master will not undertake it.



When welding small fragments, sealing cracks, the material of manufacture is determined by the nature of the damage. This is necessary to pick up an additive. The disc burst - it contains silicon, bent - there is a lot of magnesium in the alloy. Based on this, the wire for welding is selected. At the end of the work, the product is subjected to grinding, polishing, sometimes painting, then balanced.

Sledgehammer and hammer

The old tried and true method. It is used for slight curvatures, to prepare the disc for rolling with rollers. But here you need a good experience: the wrong “step to the left, step to the right” - the wheel will be irretrievably damaged. Another restoration method is straightening with a pneumatic jack (pictured below).



This procedure is suitable for steel stampings.

Is it possible to restore a forged wheel

When hitting obstacles, falling into pits, these products behave in much the same way as steel ones. Forged wheels are bent, dents form on them: that is, they are deformed, but not destroyed. However, repair is advisable only for minor defects. If the disk is rolled using heat, its structure will be disturbed and if it hits even a small hole, the wheel will become “oval”. Welding of a forged product is possible, but only to eliminate small cracks, provided that they are not located at the hub or mounting holes.

Painting

Deterioration in appearance is the least trouble that can happen to a rim. It is better to return attractiveness with the help of powder paint. Before the procedure, the product is thoroughly cleaned with abrasive agents or sandblasting to remove traces of corrosion, the old coating.



After painting, the product is dried in a special oven, providing a temperature of +200 °. The duration of the process is fifteen minutes.



You can also use acrylic paint, sold in aerosol cans. It says so on them: "for rims." It is important to remember here: the quality of the painting is highly dependent on the thoroughness of the surface preparation. The slightest traces of corrosion, left by accident (or due to inaccessibility), will then crawl out.

How to determine the quality of a used disc

At today's prices, buying a non-new disc is a standard occurrence. And it's not just the cost. It happens that it is impossible to find a wheel of the same design in stores, and buying 4 new ones is expensive. The way out is the secondary market. You can determine the suitability of the product and understand whether it has been repaired or not by external inspection:

• ? dark areas on the rim indicate the application of heat during restoration of the disc
  
• ? the absence of markings on the back side (characteristics, dimensions, date of manufacture) may indicate a repair
  
• ? traces of balancing weights also "inform" about the restoration of the product
  

Today, traces of restoration work can be masked so that the average user cannot identify them. Only an experienced craftsman can accurately understand whether a disk has been repaired.