Need your Wheel Straighten

[Joe]

I'm back to full poser status.....this is the same wheel straighten not even repainted.... for $125 by this guy http://www.framestraightsystem.com/Video.htm this guy dose fantastic work Bookmark the site cause you never know......BTW he knows his s h i t dial indicator showed true to .002" much better then factory spec.

[repoe3]

how will it hold up to future impacts? that is the one thing that steers me clear of slightly dinged wheels and the proposition of getting them straightened.

repoe3

[Joe]

Repoe

The strength is as good as original if done properly..........go to the F.S.S. site http://www.framestraightsystem.com/Video.htm and look at some of the race wheels he's done.




What ever you do just don't beat it back with a hammer if you ever get a bend.

[repoe3]

that was some impressive stuff. and for the amount of hours he says he puts into it and it costing less than $200...impressive. but other questions exist...total runout or trueness aside, when he fill welds thing and has to rework the actual metal, is he using the same material and is that now a heavy spot requiring additional or differet balancing? i ask more out of curiousity than skeptisism. guess i know where to send wheels should the ever need work. can pick up bent R6 wheels for around $75 and then another $150 or so to fix isnt too bad it i need another set.

repoe3

repoe3

[Joe]

Since your filling the area with the same material it should be the same but since it's closer to center of rotating mass it's not as critical..... weight difference out at the tread of the tire would show up a lot more....I think it's a non concern on rim repair but Balance the assembly anyway. Since his tolerances are a lot better then original it should take less weight due to less run-out.

[Moybin]

All welding processes alter the metallurgy at the point of heating. No matter what metal alloy. That said, aluminum is not steel, and behaves differently. It will have different corrosion characteristics, may be more or less susceptable to fatigue cracking and will generally be less ductile than the parent metal. Aluminum is difficult to anneal, which means it is difficult to remove the stresses induced by the heat of welding. This is one of the reasons most police BMW bikes are specified with steel rims and steel spokes. Steel is more forgiving and impact resistant than aluminum. Period.

[gdobler]

Actually interested in how you bent the rim in the first place?

[Joe]

Originally posted by gdobler
Actually interested in how you bent the rim in the first place?

Look here Bent Wheel Blues

I'm in the process of taking the state to small claims to collect.

[buckmontana]

a couple questions-

If .002" is better than factory spec, what is the factory spec for runout?


Aluminum matrix that wheels are composed of. If stressed, strength diminishes substantially, but then 'stressed' again back to original form, wouldn't the matrix be that much more succeptable to fracture? maybe worse off in long run...
I don't really know, someone tell me I'm wrong-

my front rim looks like nancy kerrigan but I don't also want the risk of less strength as long as I'm still holding psi-

[Moybin]

Every time aluminum alloy is deformed, it work hardens. That means it becomes stiffer but also more brittle. Remember taking a steel coat hanger and flexing it back and forth until it broke? At first the steel was of mild temper, meaning it bent fairly easily, but also did not crack. After a bunch of bends back and forth it took more effort to bent the stuff until suddenly it failed. It was work hardening, and you could feel it. The down side was the metal became less tolerant of being bent, and finally fractured. Aluminum happens to do it quicker than most common steel alloys. So bend it once, it gets a little harder and more brittle. Bend it back and it gets even harder and even more brittle. I can't tell you how many times it will tolerate that, but it is not many.

Again, that's why police BMW bikes have steel rims and spokes. They tolerate the very kind of pothole or curb impact that you sustained better than an aluminum wheel.

[Joe]

Moybin
so your saying even with proper heating and hydraulics's( for pressure and rolling) you wouldn't trust it?

BTW for extra$....... Die penetrante, X-Ray Testing and Certification are available (add $ ), also META-LAX and heat normalizing .
Magnesium Wheels, ADD $5.00 for Dow7 Corrosion Protection.


buckmontana

Here's some info from his site


The wheel straightening system used to correct wheels designed and fabricated by Ron Piazza provides a ridged mounting platform , that is freely adjustable. Designed to accept any manufacturers wheel, including Single Sided Swing Arm mounted wheels.



Just as with Frame Correcting, there is 3 dimensional access to all points on the hub, spokes and rim. Measurements for centrality, axial, lateral and radial run out are made before, during and after the correcting process. The completed wheel will be better than the *Manufactures Spec. before we put our stamp of approval on it.

* Yamaha Racing Group requires less then .015" ( .38mm) run out in any direction. This is the outside limit tolerance and is much more than I'm comfortable with for our work. Generally wheels leave our shop running at about .001" to .004" T.I.R. ( .03 to .12 mm).

My competitors will only guarantee T.I.R. of .020 "(.51 mm) That's over half a millimeter !!!!!!!

So, here it is......................

Your satisfaction is guaranteed..... I Promise to you ........If we can not correct your Wheel to better than ... .008" (0.20mm),....Two times better than factory spec. The work that is completed will be FREE !

" I will not return a wheel to you, unless I feel it's perfect, mechanically and visually."

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to refuse repair of any wheel that I feel will be unsafe for use.

If after work is completed the wheel is deemed to be unsafe, or unusable you will not be charged the cost of repair, the wheel will be returned in unusable condition. If you receive your wheel and are not satisfied, I will refund the cost or repair provided the wheel in question is returned to us for inspection and/or resolution.

[Moybin]

My experience and training are in stainless steels, nickel alloys, and zirconium alloys used in nuclear applications. Steels and nickel alloys are mostly BCC crystals, meaning "body centered cubic". Atoms are at the corners of a cube, with an atom in the center of the cube. Aluminum is a hexagonal columnar crystal, the same as titanium. That means they behave totally differently and can't actually be compared very well.

Magnetic particle is only good on steel alloys. Dye penetrant is fine for anything, glass, metal, plastic, but not composites like wood, fiberglass or carbon fiber. It also won't work for sintered alloys of any type (Kabar knife blades for one). X-ray can find internal cracks very well, but if you are viewing through the crack and not down into the crack, the crack will be invisible. That's why they take at least 2 orientations when they x-ray a potentially fractured bone.

Would I trust a straightened wheel? Depends, but I would want to talk to people who had hung their @sses out there first. I would want to see some hard data on how the metallurgy was tested to prove that the repaired section(s) had been normalized back to something like the original alloy. There are some aluminum alloys that remain ductile under incredible cyclic fatigues. The aluminum of the F86 jet fighter has a duty life many times what newer jets are built from.

It might sound like heresy, but I would love to see steel spokes on an S. I had snowflakes on my K100C and always worried about them because of all the pavement cracking and pot-holing we have in the midWest. And a good technician can torque spokes to return a rim to true, when you have to actually deform an alloy wheel to correct it back to true.

And because I do know a thing or two about welds and how welds fail, I don't like to ride those summer fair carny rides. Not at all! No standards or laws for inspection and upkeep. Death traps just waiting for something to break, and they do, from time to time.

I'll ride a bike because I have some (probably false) feeling of control, but get on a Ferris wheel? No way, unless it's at a permanent facility like DisneyWorld, Knotts Berry Farm, etc. (They inspect because they can be sued. One of the few up sides to the litigenous land we live within).

And as long as I'm up on my soapbox, my personal jury is still out on those stainless steel screw changeout kits. Where I work we use a lot of aluminum in custom tooling. It is held together with stainless steel screws. The tools are in a water-based process. And we see a LOT of aluminum corrosion. It is due to the difference in electronegativity of the two metals coming into contact with water. It sets up a galvanic cell (battery) and the aluminum is the anode, meaning it gives up metal to the electrolyte (the water) while the cathode (stainless steel) suffers not at all. We see a beautiful corona type erosion of the aluminum all around each and every stainless steel screw head. The heat treatment done to stainless washers makes them even more electro-negative, which eats up the aluminum faster! Since our Beemers are aluminum, adding stainless screws and then getting them wet (it happens, even when we try not to), means to me that the aluminum in valve covers and elsewhere, will begin to deteriorate. Just my 2 cents worth.

[Wayne]

Moybin,

That was a bit more than 2 cents worth.
Did you leave Eugene because it is a nuclear free zone?

Wayne

[Moybin]

I left Eugene because it seemed a dead end at the time. Nuclear power went the way of the Do-Do, so I must have chosen wrong. Still, I learned to do a lot of things with machinery that I would never have learned in Oregon. Not that my talents seem to be in any demand.

BTW, everywhere west of the Cascades is a Solar-free zone, they just haven't figured it out yet. Good thing they have hydropower because the firewood never gets a chance to dry out either!