Can wheel hub be repaired?

[ernemats]

The cracks are around the outside of the bolt holes, also on the inside of the hub on outside of the bolt holes, but not as noticeable. They are hairline cracks not just on paint as I removed the paint today to make sure.

 

[Bedlam]

Just by luck after I read up on the not welding tires while on the rim I saw Swamp Loggers and they had some HUGE tires to cut the centers out of and then re-weld in a new center ring.The guy crawled right in and torched the ring out and then he was inside to weld the new in

 

[Mace Canute]

Couple of days ago I saw one of the ubiquitous bike builder shows, (Detroit Brothers?) and they were having trouble seating a tire on a very wide rim. The genius took a torch to the bead area of the rim, and didn't just lightly warm it! Predictably, the tire did blow and fortunately for them, no one was hurt. Even if they have never heard of pyrolysis, they certainly should have realized applying that much heat to the bead area of a rim with a fully pressurized tire would severely damage the bead of the tire. The nicest thing I can say about them is they are clueless.

 

[Gizmo2]

I would buy a new center piece and be done with it. What else is stressed or cracked that you cannot see???? If you think it will happen again, enforce BEFORE the cracks start showing up. There is no shortcut to safety.

 

[RPW]

-Bedlam- I've watched many of those logging shows. Decent entertainment but IMO none of them has enough brains between them to account for much. But they do, do us a big service by bringing the wood to market. As far as welding rims with tires on them that Michelin video was an eye opener. I didn't know. Suspected but didn't know.

 

[sandman2234]

Well, thanks to Soundguy pointing out the ovious, that we all need to look at the O/P's pictures, I concluded that the 16" rims I have probably won't work, since they are one piece and the center is flat. Probably look funny on a Massy anyway...
The other is that welding on the center of the O/P rims, when entirely removed from the tractor and the tire holding part of the rim, is probably not going to hurt anybody, and as most of us agree, fixing the cracks, then welding reinforcing plates to one or both sides will probably make the rim safer than it was originally. In my opinion, since the tractor isn't running down the road at a high rate of speed, unbalanced wheels aren't going to kill anyone. Should the rim fail after the current suggested plans, the worse thing is it is going to plow into the ground and make a furrow for more corn to be planted it. If the operator is wearing his seatbelt, then most likely the worse thing might be a bruised hip from the seatbelt.
David from jax

 

[Soundguy]

yep.. welding new centers into rims is pretty common in the antique tractor world. for low speed operations it's not a big deal.

soundguy