MTFCA Forum

Have 2 Hayes demountable rims for a 24' touring where most of the clincher seems to be in good shape but there are a few places where it is bent in and needs to be straightened out and a few places where it is sharp and needs to be filed down. Looking for some advice on repairing these rims. My experience was that there was not much out there in original restorable Hayes 23" demountable rims. I have been watching eBay for the last 6 months and not much has come on the market or what is up for sale is ridiculous in price on something that is not is good shape. The aftermarket in reading aren't near the metal thickness. Anyone have either some good references to read or video's to restore/repair metal clincher? Read somewhere in this forum that someone suggested file down the sharp edge and then use the smallest door guard trim. Looking for any suggestions.

Myself I would not buy any clincher rim that I did not put my hands on first.
You need to go to Luray in May.

I want to add to what Dan said. Don't buy 1 with the tire still on it, or at least do it with a open mindset.

Vintage Rims in Australia makes excellent reproduction rims. The price in AU$ will be well in your favour. It will be well under the cost of a new tyre and tube, should you get a rim cut and blowout by running a less than excellent rim. Paint, fit and forget.

Wise heads advise seeing any used rim in person. You can't see the bead with the tyre fitted. If you take a punt on a fitted tyre/rim combination, pay just as much as you would risk having to discard both.

Allan from down under.

Clincher rims have always been a problem in the hobby. Too many people did not understand how important it was to have a really good bead and rim. Too many beginners had to ruin a couple new tires before they learned the hard way. I was fortunate. I met some wonderful people early into my model T interest and got really good advice from them. I also occasionally got some not so good advice a few times.
Even fifty years ago, rims with a few inches of severe rust where water settled in and stayed were common. Often, those rims can be filed and saved. The trick is knowing how far to go. The inner rim edges need to be rounded, and smooth. A rat-tail file (or two?) is a good way to file them. The hard part is working under the clincher in that tight little space.
NOT sharp as well as smooth is important. The clincher bead squirms and works itself against the rim's edges every inch it rolls! ANY roughness, ANY sharpness, it will try very hard to cut into the tire's bead and weaken it enough to either cut through or work loose and come off the rim!
The clincher needs to be deep enough that it goes over the tire's bead every inch of the way around the rim! The clincher can be a bit shallow for maybe an inch? But NO more! And shallow does not mean missing!
Even an inch of bead not firmly held under the clincher could manage to work itself loose and manage to peal the tire off the rim!

It is common for four to eight inches of clincher rim to be bad. If not very bad? Maybe the rim can be filed and saved. Maybe not.
SOMETIMES hot dipped galvanizing can save a marginal rim. Years ago, I had an opportunity to add my rims in for free to a custom order that didn't meet the minimum price. I had about ten bad rims I had saved and said what the heck, do them. To my surprise, the heavy coating of hot dipped zinc did such a fine job filling in pits and thin areas that I ended up using half those rims on model Ts I had later. The worst half I used to display old tires that I wanted to preserve. The tires are hard and weak so cannot be used on a car. Some of the clinchers were so far gone that it helped with mounting the stiff tires.

I never scrapped clincher rims, no matter how bad they were. I might have enough good ones left to get by on cars I still hope to restore. And I think I have a couple with bad sections that as is are not usable. I always figured the day would come when good rims would be difficult enough to find that taking three bad rims and doing some careful cutting and welding making two good rims out of them. Any good welder today could do that. And if I ever get back to a swap meet again? I hope to be trying to buy a few more rims, even bad ones. Just in case I need them.

You need to go to Luray in May.

Chickasha next month is closer to South Dakota.


I once read of curing sharp rims by grinding off the sharp edges and welding on a ring of ⅛" welding rod to form a new rounded edge. It sounds plausible, but I don't think I'm a good enough welder to pull it off.

I second the recommendation not to buy rims that still have tires mounted on them, I got burned on that once.

If you prefer to repair what you have there is a person or company in Australia that makes repair rings that slip over the sharp edges and can be glued or tack welded in place to provide a fresh, smooth edge.

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/70 ... 1513263055

"It sounds plausible, but I don't think I'm a good enough welder to pull it off." Steve, by the time you finished 3 or 4 rims, you would be. Drive careful, jb

Thanks for the responses does anyone have any contact info to get in touch with Dean to see if he still has this product? Looking for this "Rim Savers".
Can anyone from this attached thread help me out? Thanks in advance

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/70 ... 1513263055

Contact Andrew Brand via the forum, he got some for me a few years ago.

https://mtfca.com/phpBB3/memberlist.php ... file&u=643

I cannot remember if it was in VF Tinkering Tips or the Tips books but there was an article on sharp rims. The gentleman ground off the sharp edge all the way around. He then used a heavy gage steel wire and tacked it down to startto hold it. He made a simple heavy wire tool that went overboth edges of the rim and held the new replacement edge wire in place so he could tack it in place. He could pull the tool ahead to position the replacement wire each time to attach the next tack weld. It may have been time consuming but the new wire edge was always aligned in position to weld. I cannot remember if he could do both sides at the same time. When he finished tacking the full diameter he could then go back and skip weld the wire fully in place thereby keeping the heat from warping the rim?
I do not have the VF on CD so I can not do a quick llo up to see if is there.

Another idea.
How about wedging in a copper pipe/tube of the correct diameter. Then MIG/arc weld a bead along the rough edge to build it up. Pull out the copper then die grinder or whatever to finish it off.

The copper/MIG trick works very well for short lengths of missing bead.

I used that trick to save an otherwise mint demountable that inexplicably had a short but significantly deep ground out area of missing bead. The repair was invisible afterwards. That was about 3 years ago and is the spare rim on my runabout.

For dings like those caused by rolling the rim with no tyre fitted, I use a 12" adjustable wrench to lift the bent section back into place.

Allan from down under.

There is a drawing of the tool used to keep the wire in place prior to welding, in Ted Aschman's "Tinkerin' Tips." It is not in volume two, so it must be in volume one!

Allan from down under.

Tinkering Tips Volume # 1. Pages 54 and 55

Contact me, I will have some good used rims available shortly- no junk.
dmcgears@yahoo.com or PM...................... You will have to pay shipping from Calif, but...........