Borked wheel woes

I bought my '08 VFR in April, and it came with a slightly borked rear wheel. This summer I took a turn too wide, ended up on the shoulder and laid her down. In the process I borked the front wheel too.

Now that I have both front and back wheels borked, I'm thinking about getting them fixed. I don't think they affect the performance of the wheels, but just an eye sore.

Wanted to poll your thoughts on sending my rims to a place like this one:
http://www.wheelrepairlosangeles.biz/

Your thoughts on repair vs. getting used/new wheels?

i bent my front wheel jumping a curb. i replaced it. back wheel had a very slight flat spot and it never vibrates at high speed so i kept it.

bad thing about aluminum.bend it once and bend it back it can go snap.

A good quality Wheel Shop can fix about anything, just be sure they specialize in m/c wheels and have a good rep.
We have a member (cruzinaz) with a wheel shop (www.nuwheel.com)
in AZ that does great work.

BR

Just spoke to the guy from the link above, and he says he heats it up with a torch, then bends it back with a hydraulic press. Finally, he'll fix the cosmetic blemish with paint. He's quoting me $150 per wheel. Does this sound right?

Send a pm to cruzinaz.

He owns this shop: www.nuwheel.com

If it's just rashed, I can repair it with my tig welder. If it's bent, you need a specialist like Cruzin.

heat it up and bend it back? yea right. heating it up that hot is going to change the aluminum and could make it brittle.

Rear wheels are fairly cheap on Ebay.

Front wheels... Ouch!

In '98 when the fifth gen came out you should have seen how hard it was to get a rear wheel to replace the forth gen rear.
I think I paid 250.00 in 1998.
Fortunately I still have mine from 98 which I just painted and my buddies which I just installed on my wife's '96.

Email some pictures to wheel places and see what they can do. Lots of high tech wheel places fixing very low profile tire car wheels these days.

I agree on getting your car tire fixed but I don't think I would mess with a bike tire. I had to have a wheel repaired on a car rim and it was fine but I also had three others in case it wasnt.

besides, isn't there a chemical agent in the aluminum that would weaken it when heated?

[image: View Post]Viffer88, on 15 November 2011 - 07:12 PM, said:

I bought my '08 VFR in April, and it came with a slightly borked rear wheel. This summer I took a turn too wide, ended up on the shoulder and laid her down. In the process I borked the front wheel too.

Now that I have both front and back wheels borked, I'm thinking about getting them fixed. I don't think they affect the performance of the wheels, but just an eye sore.

Wanted to poll your thoughts on sending my rims to a place like this one:
http://www.wheelrepairlosangeles.biz/

Your thoughts on repair vs. getting used/new wheels?
I bent a front wheel on a pothole last June. I used these guys http://www.mcwheel.com/ and they did a good job repairing the wheel. I used some Rustoleum gloss black paint I had lying around to touch up the paint when they were done. As I recall it cost me about $120.

I'd vote on repairing the wheel.
Jack

[image: View Post]Oh6PearlVFR, on 15 November 2011 - 10:01 PM, said:

I agree on getting your car tire fixed but I don't think I would mess with a bike tire. I had to have a wheel repaired on a car rim and it was fine but I also had three others in case it wasnt.

besides, isn't there a chemical agent in the aluminum that would weaken it when heated?

No, no chemical reaction. Aluminum has to be heat treated in an oven per some very specific time and temperature tables to become physically altered to a new condition or state of hardness/ductility. Most alloys will become annealed(softest) at 600+ degrees. There are many variables to this.

Alloy and temper will dictate whether or not rework is a viable option, good luck finding out exactly what that is... castings are difficult to get hardness readings on, and I doubt Honda or Enkei will provide you with their alloy info.

Bottom line is, it wouldn't be common practice to straighten wheels if in fact there were a high risk of catastrophic failure. No shop would be able to afford the insurance...

I used to have a post here about how I bent my front rim on a softball sized rock that had made its way into the middle of a road I was riding on. I took it to a local machine shop and for about $120 had it repaired. This was several years and many miles ago. I have had several new tires mounted and many multi-day road trips with absolutely no problems.

So for the nay-sayers I have a simple question...Are you an expert or had first hand experience with this?

I would trust Seb's opinion on this matter having gone through this myself. The experts who do this for a living will tell you if it is repairable or not in short order. And as Seb said, they wouldn't do it if it couldn't be safely done for liability reasons alone.

Oh...and I still have these pics in my gallery to give you and idea of what a good machinist can do. :fing02:
[image: index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=203] front bent rim Album: My Motorcycles Uploaded 05 Feb 2007 - 19:24

[image: index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=203] bent rim2.JPG Album: My Motorcycles Uploaded 05 Feb 2007 - 19:25

[image: index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=203] fixed rim.JPG Album: My Motorcycles Uploaded 08 Feb 2007 - 18:11

Is Will's Rim Repair still around?

Check out framestraight.com
They repaired damage to the front rim of my 98 that was similar to Vanion's. The repair quality was very good and the price was reasonable.

[image: View Post]Viffer88, on 15 November 2011 - 07:47 PM, said:

Just spoke to the guy from the link above, and he says he heats it up with a torch, then bends it back with a hydraulic press. Finally, he'll fix the cosmetic blemish with paint. He's quoting me $150 per wheel. Does this sound right?

$150 is about avg. for wheel straightening, but try to check out their Rep before using or finding a shop someone else has used.

[image: View Post]vanion2, on 16 November 2011 - 09:11 AM, said:

I used to have a post here about how I bent my front rim on a softball sized rock that had made its way into the middle of a road I was riding on. I took it to a local machine shop and for about $120 had it repaired. This was several years and many miles ago. I have had several new tires mounted and many multi-day road trips with absolutely no problems.

So for the nay-sayers I have a simple question...Are you an expert or had first hand experience with this?

I would trust Seb's opinion on this matter having gone through this myself. The experts who do this for a living will tell you if it is repairable or not in short order. And as Seb said, they wouldn't do it if it couldn't be safely done for liability reasons alone.

Oh...and I still have these pics in my gallery to give you and idea of what a good machinist can do. :fing02:


Damn - that's crazy
I don't have any experience with motorcycle tire repair,but I do have an opinion.

Thanks for the info Seb

Or, there's a set of fifth gen wheels in the classifieds right now for $300...

[image: View Post]Viffer88, on 15 November 2011 - 07:47 PM, said:

Just spoke to the guy from the link above, and he says he heats it up with a torch, then bends it back with a hydraulic press. Finally, he'll fix the cosmetic blemish with paint. He's quoting me $150 per wheel. Does this sound right?

You should have told me you were a VFRD member. Give me a call back or shoot me a PM for cost.

Thanx BR and Seb, appreciate the kind words. :blush:

I agree 100% with checking out any repair shop, I always do before I have any work done. We have been here for 21 years now so info on us should be pretty easy to find. :wink:

1+++ on that set of rims in the classifieds, get them then possibly have yours repaired as spare set,,I'd already own them if they'd work on a 4th gen

Just tossing these up in case anyone here has a need for this type of repair - this wheel suffered some road rash but was not bent. I cleaned and repaired the damaged areas to like new. This repair will require the wheel to be refinished or touched up at minimum, depending on the amount of damage.

Before:
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[image: Posted Image]

After:

[image: Posted Image]

[image: Posted Image]

[image: Posted Image]

+1 for Cruisinaz.
He straightened my front and even repainted it to look like new.
Exceptional work.

[image: View Post]TomP, on 16 November 2011 - 12:13 PM, said:

Or, there's a set of fifth gen wheels in the classifieds right now for $300...

Tires and wheels for $300! :ohmy:

Good deal, BUT the guy has been a member for about 1 day so be careful! :ph34r: We always advise caution when buying from anyone who only signs up to sell or claim to sell something and then disappear.
Not saying anything about the seller, just don't have any history! :huh:

BR