Urgent Need Wheel Help

[MaverickApollo]

We got some goodyears mounted at a local tire shop and somehow they botched the job. The rim itself looks like it was dropped a couple of times. The tire/wheel doesn't seem to be sealing properly. Although the rim is bent out of shape the tire seams to seal against the lip it is where the shell comes together that there appears to be a leak.

1) Are there any suggestions on how to fix this.
2) Does anyone have Keizer Rims with a bolt patter on 4x100, with an offset around 1.37.

-Jason
Duke Motorsports

[MaverickApollo]

We got some goodyears mounted at a local tire shop and somehow they botched the job. The rim itself looks like it was dropped a couple of times. The tire/wheel doesn't seem to be sealing properly. Although the rim is bent out of shape the tire seams to seal against the lip it is where the shell comes together that there appears to be a leak.

1) Are there any suggestions on how to fix this.
2) Does anyone have Keizer Rims with a bolt patter on 4x100, with an offset around 1.37.

-Jason
Duke Motorsports

[Drew Price]

Jason,

You need to seal the rim halves against each other, the Keizers (at least the old ones I have) don't have anything to seal between the halves built in. You need to unbolt the centers and smear silicone or RTV between the mating surfaces of the rim halves, let it cure, then re-inflate.

Make sure you get around the bolts that hold the halves together, I have had leaks there before.

We also had decent luck straightening a bent rim shell (curb) with a combination of peeing hammers, rubber mallets, and adjustable wrenches to get it back into shape, and if your tire bead doesn't seat against the shoulder on the rim shell, a little bit of really heavy grease (a clear synthetic or something that won't eat at the rubber), or even better what we have, is Dow vacuum grease. It'll let the bead seal enough to pop the bead against the outer wall of the rim, and should seal itself. I'll have that with us at comp if you're still having problems.

I think the competition BBS wheels come with instructions that specifically say not to mount tires with a beading machine, but to disassemble the wheel and re-assemble it around the new tire, inflate at 30-35psi to seat the beads, then reduce to working pressure. The Keizer rim halves are extremely thin, so it probably bend when a possible inexperienced operator tried to roll the bead onto the wheel, not from being dropped (but that's possible too).

I will have our old set of Keizer asphalt wheels that are 4x100 at comp for rain wheels, if the weather is decent you are welcome to use them (or of the weather is shitty I will mount our wets to our new wheels and you are still welcome to them).

So hope the weather isn't iffy.

Best,
Drew

[MaverickApollo]

Drew,

Thanks for the advice, we have a second set of keizers with an unusable offset, so we are going to try switch out the centers, seal them and hopefully everything will work out. Otherwise we may need to take you up on your offer.

-Jason

[Drew Price]

If you guys wanna help our effort and start doing (anti-) rain dances that'd be appreciated.

Best,
Drew

[CB23]

Vacuum grease? Well, let's just hold off on that a bit. . . We use vacuum grease when we are creating a glassware distillation system that operates in the 1-10 micron vacuum range (near space levels of vacuum). All our chemical engineers are nearly terrified of the stuff, and take extreme measures to not get it on their skin. It being impervious to nearly all legal solvents to remove. . . http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Chris
lurker, non-FSAE person, but open wheel driver

[J. Vinella]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Drew Price:
If you guys wanna help our effort and start doing (anti-) rain dances that'd be appreciated.

Best,
Drew </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

When I saw it was potentially going to rain I instantly got a chubby...it rains 9 months out of the year is Seattle...makes me sad that it will be sunny during the dynamic events.

+1 to the silicon sealing. Make sure it has sufficient time to dry. Full cure in 1 week, half cure in a few days. You can kick it a bit with on oven but not recommended.

[Zhefei Li]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by CB23:
Vacuum grease? Well, let's just hold off on that a bit. . . We use vacuum grease when we are creating a glassware distillation system that operates in the 1-10 micron vacuum range (near space levels of vacuum). All our chemical engineers are nearly terrified of the stuff, and take extreme measures to not get it on their skin. It being impervious to nearly all legal solvents to remove. . . http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Chris
lurker, non-FSAE person, but open wheel driver </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Then I shouldn't have been smearing it on with my fingers? Shoot.

[MaverickApollo]

Drew: It looks like we wont be needing the wheels after all. We ended up using ultra Grey, as of now the tires seem to be holding up.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by J. Vinella:

+1 to the silicon sealing. Make sure it has sufficient time to dry. Full cure in 1 week, half cure in a few days. You can kick it a bit with on oven but not recommended. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>


As for the silicon, we don't really have a week for it to seal.

-Jason