Filler for Ally Wheels

[Gizmo.Y]

Before anyone goes off...ive read the threads on here about the bad sides of doing this...

Anyhow, ive been tasked with repairing several alloy wheels. The good news is they are being on a stockcar, so they will never see the public road.

Questions is what filler would be best suitable for the job? Doesnt need to be pretty. He has classed them as scrap due to the cracks, but they are hard wheels to come bye.

IIRC, they are some BMW 13x6 alloys back from the late 70's/ early 80's.

 

[HMB]

4043 if your not bothered

 

[dannyp]

depends on the wheel as to what they are made of its a stab in the dark tbh. pick a filler any filler id probaly go for a 4XXX as it'll probaly be easyest to get a reasonabl weld with. cracks around the rim arnt to bad but beware of the spokes. if you can see 1 crack dye pen them there are probaly more you just cant se yet

 

[Richard.]

4043 or 4047 would be my selection on an unknown wheel composition. Manufacturing process also plays a part in how weldable they are.
@hotrodder is a genius with these sorts of questions. Hopefully he'll reply and hopefully you'll take on his advise.
I would!!

 

[Chris Stevens]

In some cases wheel material is denoted on the casting. Using 4000 series filler material tends to make subsequent failure more likely.

 

[hotrodder]

I haven't got anything to add that i haven't said in most of the other threads about welding wheels, http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/tig-welding-alloy-wheels.57162/ is the most recent one i think

 

[Chris Stevens]

Thousands of wheel repairs carried out every day, and as road conditions worsen the number of these is set to increase. Maybe properly looking at the best possible way to repair, rather than saying the repair cant be done or is unsafe, would be very useful?

 

[Scott_welderbeast]

I'd use 4043 all day.
If it's on a stock car it'll crack again anyway but is the wheel an aftermarket one?
In my experience they're dogger and not worth putting on. I see so many cheap wheels need repairing try stick with a factory fitted one (so long as it's not BMW hahaha)

 

[Chris Stevens]

4043 repairs fail pretty quickly as the weld material is a good deal weaker than the rest of the wheel. Not really much point in doing a repair using 4000 series filler.

 

[Kent]

Thousands of wheel repairs carried out every day, and as road conditions worsen the number of these is set to increase. Maybe properly looking at the best possible way to repair, rather than saying the repair cant be done or is unsafe, would be
very useful?

Or for people to get real and stop living in fantasy land buying these cars that run on tyres with so little sidewall that wheel damage
is inevitable

 

[Chris Stevens]

Very low profile tyres fitted to wagon wheels are a fact of life nowadays, and manufacturers now even fitting them to 4x4. I would guess we have about the worst roads in Europe, and not sure manufacturers are going to provide different spec to cope with that?

 

[hotrodder]

4043 repairs fail pretty quickly as the weld material is a good deal weaker than the rest of the wheel. Not really much point in doing a repair using 4000 series filler.

The AWS, Alcotec, pretty much every other authority on aluminum welding and even the wheel specific pdf research paper you posted (in the thread i linked to) all disagree when it comes to welding AlSi castings
http://preserve.lehigh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1362&context=etd from the bottom of pg26...

It is concluded that the cast-aluminum wheels should be welded with the 4043 welding rod consumable and the wrought wheels should be welded with the 5556 welding consumables. These most closely match the major alloying element(s) in the wheels.

I've not re read the entire thing but IIRC the only wrought wheel they played with was forged from 5454 (not heat treatable but obviously welding messes up grain structure of a forging and 'undoes' any strain hardening). Wheels forged from a 6xxx series and/or spun 'dishes' from 3 piece split rims (both usually 6082-T6 or 6061-T6 or something very similar) are very different beasts to 5454 but that's not likely relevant for some old 13" wheels

 

[Scott_welderbeast]

I've done a fair few cracked alloys in my time and I've always used 4043.
Most failures I've seen are HAZ.
In my experience it either welds well or comes back cracked in HAZ.
It's the cheap aftermarket ones that keep coming back and 9 times out of 10 they're low profile

I'm not arguing what you're saying is wrong I'm just giving my personal opinion given past experiences

 

[Chris Stevens]

I have done thousands over the years, and found that the fact that 4043 is substantially weaker than the rest of the wheel means failure in the welded area is far more likely than if more suitable filler is used.

If cracking is occurring in the HAZ generally means too much heat has been applied, which often comes about due to less effective prep work.

 

[Richard.]

The filler been lower strength generally means it's got more chance of survival. It's a more ductile repair with a closer composition to Alsi wheels.
Far less likely to crack than a higher strength consumable.

 

[Chris Stevens]

The filler been lower strength generally means it's got more chance of survival. It's a more ductile repair with a closer composition to Alsi wheels.
Far less likely to crack than a higher strength consumable.

Wonder how many wheels you have repaired? Did use 4043 in the first few years I was doing repairs, but found on things like BMW wheels crackng in the weld area was happening more often than I would have liked. Different filler material has meant far less problems, and major refurb francise I do repairs for, has reported only one or 2 issues in more than 4 years.

 

[WorkshopChris]

Its one of those things once somebody knows you have AC Tig capabilities, you soon get asked "can you weld a rim for me".

My answer is always no. Just because you can do it , it doesn't mean you should. In the same way as fitting spacers to wheels.

It cracked originally because of a problem in the material, any repair just adds new problems.

As has already being said 4043 as a very temporary repair, i would try some helium with the argon may help with the HAZ you can get in and out quicker without hanging around while the pool warms up and forms.

 

[Richard.]

Wonder how many wheels you have repaired?

Not that many.
I'm not that hard up that I need to take on work I don't particularly want to do but I do know a little bit about strength vs ductility and material composition and your reasoning behind it makes little sense. Alsi compositions are best welded with an Alsi filler (4*** series).

 

[Scott_welderbeast]

Does helium makeep a noticeable difference? I've only ever used pureshield argon, having said that we use dynasty 350 and dynasty 700 sets at work and they take literally seconds to get a pool started on alloys. I always understood a helium mix to give better penetration.
There are 4 tyre shops/garages that we do wheel cracks for and I can count on 1 hand how many returns we get but when we do get them it's the HAZ not the weld.

Like I said I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm not saying the way I repair them is either

 

[WorkshopChris]

I do not know how much difference it makes its just what I would do if I had to. I think a member on the forum, Backpurg from memory may have more of an idea. It produces a hotter output for the same given amperage.

If you doing them them you obviously know what can and cant be repaired and with dynasty sets are better set up than some.
I have seen chunks literally glued back on with 200a sets just because people think they can weld ali.