Bent wheel

[Seth]

hit a pothole on the way home from work tonight.
bent the wheel on my 77rs... and original blue-stripe.

any suggestions for places or methods of repairing the wheel, hopefully retaining the current finish.
thanks.
Seth

77rs wheel small.jpg (104.9 KiB) Viewed 2134 times

[Duane Ausherman]

Easy fix, just use a vise, or clamp. Bend it back slowly.

[Major Softie]

A layer of wood between clamp/vise and rim will protect the finish.

[Seth]

the bead flange is not only bent out, the inner portion (near the spokes) is flattened as well. So I understand drawing the bead together with the vise, but not sure how to deal with the flat-spot. the other side of the rim is better, but i can feel a very slight flat-spot on the rim as well. the spoke area appears to be ok.

[melville]

Cut a piece of wood into two on a curved line just a little tighter radius than the right rim shape. Clamp the rim in the radial direction between your two pieces of wood. Depending on where the bend resides, you may need to remove some spokes in the area. I'd do that first, then worry about the parallelosity of the flanges.

Good luck!

[Chuey]

One nice thing about the Weinmann rims is that they are not brittle like a cast rim would be. Applying force in a fashion that is opposite to the force that bent it may be another option. Undoing the spokes in the area and using some strong blows from a hammer with a properly curved wood block may work. You would have to be willing to use some powerful blows but you could go at it in graduated steps. I'd use a hardwood like maple.

Chuey

[SteveD]

Cut a piece of wood into two on a curved line just a little tighter radius than the right rim shape. Clamp the rim in the radial direction between your two pieces of wood. Depending on where the bend resides, you may need to remove some spokes in the area. I'd do that first, then worry about the parallelosity of the flanges.

Parallelosity!? That's a new one.

[Chuey]

Parallelosity!? That's a new one.

A new one, but a good one. It gets the point across just as it should.

Chuey

[Duane Ausherman]

One nice thing about the Weinmann rims is that they are not brittle like a cast rim would be. Applying force in a fashion that is opposite to the force that bent it may be another option. Undoing the spokes in the area and using some strong blows from a hammer with a properly curved wood block may work. You would have to be willing to use some powerful blows but you could go at it in graduated steps. I'd use a hardwood like maple.

Chuey

I know nothing about other types of rims, but with this one, do not use a hammer. Apply the force slowly and it can be moved far more than your very minor error. In a vise, expect to add pressure a few times a day. It can move more quickly, but I prefer slow, very slow. A hammer is way to fast and you can ruin it easily.

Hammering on a rim made me a lot of money, because the hammer was used by somebody else. We sold the replacement rim.

[dwire]

To dig up an old topic and not have to start a new one (yeah!) what ever became of this rim repair? I have a front rim that is going to need re-lacing anyhow and it would appear a PO might have made a rather abrupt stop against something... lol Unfortunate for them this is a '71 SWB model, where their ability to procreate could have been affected by the gas tank cap as well...

Duane, I am not 100% sure I can visualize what you are suggesting, other than making a rounded piece of wood for the opposite side of the rim. All I can envision in my mind, with everything "set up" as I can dream it should be in your suggestion, I would be slowly tightening a vice down here? I sure wish I had the proper piece of wood or some idea what it need be like before attempting this. My flat spot is by no means from what I can tell as bad as the OP's; just bad enough that A) The rim is not perfectly round and B) I think the width might have been disturbed some there as well as all of this caused the tire to "bubble out" and ruin any chance a year ago or sense to ride the thing as it was a death wobble trap.

The Weiman rim is a bit beat up (more OP dumbness changing tires/tubes I guess) but otherwise totally unscathed, but will need new spokes for certain either way - hub must get swapped out due to a crack considering I have a replacement and the spokes look like they came off a Roy Rogers' bike from 10-20 years prior; rusted to beat the band and some nipples that look frightening from the inside.

Would you or anyone else with experience in this area care to comment more on the procedure? I have all the time in the World - well tell my departure, but am so sick of looking at that beauty knowing about a month of on and off work would both give me a show bike as well as a way to afford transportation reasonably at today's gas prices...

Thank you in advance anyone that can comment on my situation here.

Douglas