wheel modification?

[jakesae101]

i thaught it was illegal to do with steelies now

[thegreatestben]

Nope, heaps of guys on oldschool are rolling widened steels.

[frost]

malcolm said,, that's not entirely true. You can solution heat treat/precipitation harden the aluminium post-welding to achieve similar strength to the original wheel.


that is correct but most places don't do it.

there is a honda nsx at a high class panel beaters i know of that had a frontal, bent chassis rail that was "pulled" back in place then snapped.

the boss got a mate in to do the welding. he advised the boss of it cracking if not done properly, boss said oh well just weld it up.

note to self don't buy a nsx anytime soon.

[jakesae101]

Nope, heaps of guys on oldschool are rolling widened steels.

i used to have them on my escort but didnt make them legal owell i like being proved wrong i just got told that they were illegal

[mjrstar]

this is the legal way to widen steelies by using 2 rims to make one. engineers certificate etc...

I had some 'illegal' widened steels from my mini which were just chopped in half and a 2'' wide ring welded into the centre.

[xsspeed]

Pretty sure xsspeed was just pointing out its not illegal as jakesae101 thought..

spot on

afaik you can still chop and widen steelies, (not just flip centres on three piece wheels). I think so long as its done by a ticketed welder (not sure what level) and are then rebalanced, then there is no issue.

[Malcolm]

malcolm said,, that's not entirely true. You can solution heat treat/precipitation harden the aluminium post-welding to achieve similar strength to the original wheel.


that is correct but most places don't do it.

there is a honda nsx at a high class panel beaters i know of that had a frontal, bent chassis rail that was "pulled" back in place then snapped.

the boss got a mate in to do the welding. he advised the boss of it cracking if not done properly, boss said oh well just weld it up.

note to self don't buy a nsx anytime soon.

Funny you should mention that, I did an assignment on aluminium vs steel for automotive chassis for a manufacturing paper I did when I was at AUT a few years ago, and that was one of the biggest issues with an aluminium chassis - repairing damage is so much more difficult to do with aluminium.



I don't think I'd ever use welded aluminium wheels, if you really love the look of those old wheels, you could get some centres made that look the same then buy some rim sections and go 3 piece wheels - probably looking at something like $2-3K to get 4 centres made, although I've never taken a good look at those wheels to see how complex the machining would be.

[Paulio]

Its not illegal, it can be done but like anything else they will need LVV cert, a ticket from an engineer will assist in getting that. A ticket from the engineer by itself isnt going to satisfy a straight-up wof guy.

Law is there to stop backyard bogans with an angle grinder and a welder widening their steelies and creating a flying saucer.
When its done professionally, its a different story.

Obviously steel and alloy are 2 different storys; steelies could easily be done & certed, if youre that way inclined.

Alloy would cost a lot and be a mission to get certed. If you could get the alloys done, that would be pretty cool. I doubt anyone will want to LVV cert them though. But LVV cert isnt going to make them any stronger. The certifier wouldn't know how strong the weld is, the engineer would. Why I would use a trustworthy engineer instead of getting them certified.

Paulio