Egon
Epic Contributor
Hit it with a needle scaler and evaluate. If okay give it a dose of phosphoric acid and clean up. Final coat of rust preventative paint spray.
Here's what the worst (from the outside ) of both wheels look like.Your picture does indeed look very bad. However, steel can expand up to 7 times when rusted. This means your wheel could be fine and only needs rust removal, treatment, and painting. So I would recommend using a powered wire brush to remove all the rust down to bare steel and then evaluate the condition of the wheel.
Eric
Iy looks to me like your rims are fine. If these were my rims I wouldn't replace them. Make sure you remove ALL the rust, treat with a rust converter, which will contain phosphoric acid, and then paint.Here's what the worst (from the outside ) of both wheels look like.
Not knowing how bad the shape was, I was worried about a catastrophic failure/explosion so I used my thick welding gloves and protective glasses as well as grinded from the side of the wheels, just in case.
For now, being below freezing, I've applied Fluid Film over the brushed off part. Probably useless at this point though![]()
Needle scaler? I do have a bottle of Ospho that I might try next spring if it's worth it.