The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts Motor wheels

How much rust inside the rim, is acceptable? These rims are 20" Motor wheels with the 5 lug pattern and 8 hand holds. Theyre almost impossible to find, otherwise Id probably try to find some extras and choose the best to make up my set.

Pic 1
Pic 2

There is a layer of rust that flaked off in my electrolysis tank around the center portion of the rim. The lock ring and mating surfaces appear fine. The other side of the rim does have a bit of a rusted groove in the inside angle where the tire bead sits.

Also, I really dont know how this happened, but one of my rims has a dozen or more small dents that look as if someone beat the hell out of it from the inner portion outward towards the center of the rim. Is there some reason unbeknownst to me that this rim is beat up this way? I cant imagine that had anything to do with tearing down or putting together these wheels. Im sure I can work these down with a little effort.

Any ideas on why that happened?

Thanks, Jeff

I would paint it and use it. Like you say they are very hard to find.

I was wondering the same thing, I have the same wheels on my truck. I have about the same amount of rust as yours. I hope that I can still use them, I really like the look of these wheels.
I took 2 of em apart, it was a bit of a project. I used a sawzall and an air chisel to get the tires off the wheels.

The pictures are very common examples of old wheels. Moisture is trapped between the flap and the wheel and they rust. There are lots of them running around that are worse than yours. We use this stuff on our steel and aluminum wheels. It prevents rust. http://www.freylube.com/ And it makes the tires much easier to mount and it will be a lot easier to dismount if you ever have a flat. Paint alone is not that good a rust preventative on wheels. You can paint it first and then apply freylube or use it on bare metal.

Hey thanks for that tip. They even have a British Columbia distributor.

i would check around the lock ring for heavy rust damage. just to be on the safe side

they don't look any worse than mine. dings on the inside maybe someone hit some object in the road and tried to straighten it back out. Had a flat on a Penske rental trailer a few weeks ago. Tire man didn't want to remount tire as someone had heated and tried to straighten the wheel after it had been bent. They didn't even paint it you could still see the burn marks. It was mounted on the inside where you couldn't get a good look without crawling under there.