Dangers of welding wheels.

[DirtHauler]

This is also why tires will explode after lightning strikes or contact with powerlines. The most important thing i saw in the film is:

http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3086/osha3086.html

Heat must not be applied to a single-piece wheel.
Cracked, broken, bent, or otherwise damaged wheels must not be reworked, welded, brazed or otherwise heated.

Cracked, broken, bent or otherwise damaged wheel components must not be reworked, welded, brazed, or otherwise heated. Heat must not be applied to a multi-piece wheel.


If your wheel has ANY defect it must be discarded, NO repairs to wheels are allowed.

 

[Dualie]

I forwarded this vid to the goodsons.

 

[bill5362]

Lee,
Thanks for sharing I have welded on a few wheels will make sure to never do again unless tire is not mounted.

 

[DirtHauler]

Lee,
Thanks for sharing I have welded on a few wheels will make sure to never do again unless tire is not mounted.

I guess OSHA is saying that wheels must be scrapped if it needs welded. I wonder if this has to do with heat treatment or what. Does this mean you can not "heat" wheels to have them powder coated?

http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3086/osha3086.html

Heat must not be applied to a single-piece wheel.
Cracked, broken, bent, or otherwise damaged wheels must not be reworked, welded, brazed or otherwise heated.

Cracked, broken, bent or otherwise damaged wheel components must not be reworked, welded, brazed, or otherwise heated. Heat must not be applied to a multi-piece wheel.


If your wheel has ANY defect it must be discarded, NO repairs to wheels are allowed.

 

[AirBornOne]

Safety Film
The Bridgestone film was interesting,I dont believe the tire would blow that fast as in the film, they only welded for 10 or 12 seconds on the wheel.No doubt if you welded long ,or heated enough the tire will finally blow,but not in that short of time.I just dont buy it.It's a safety issue for sure, but I dont deflate a tire just to put some heat on a stuck stud or nut .They also left out the danger of using starting fluid to seat a tire bead.

Well TD25c,either your luck is running out or your just ignorant.
What you need to realize is the heat applied by the few moments of welding is not the cause of the tire blowing but the cause of the "pyrolysis".The condition of pyrolysis (sp) occuring being the reason the internal temperatures rose so fast leading to the tire blowing.
Did you look at the temp gage? 200-300-400-600-900-1100-1400 BOOM.
Do yourself a favor and 'study' the video.
Happy to be considered rude & obnoxious if it means someones the wiser(safer),Jay.

 

[DirtHauler]

Well TD25c,either your luck is running out or your just ignorant.
What you need to realize is the heat applied by the few moments of welding is not the cause of the tire blowing but the cause of the "pyrolysis".The condition of pyrolysis (sp) occuring being the reason the internal temperatures rose so fast leading to the tire blowing.
Did you look at the temp gage? 200-300-400-600-900-1100-1400 BOOM.
Do yourself a favor and 'study' the video.
Happy to be considered rude & obnoxious if it means someones the wiser(safer),Jay.

You are exactly right, I also had my doubts about the whole thing until i looked up pyrolysis and did some reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolysis
The welding heat sets off a chain reaction that is why this is so dangerous. Basicly the welding is like applying heat to a match head. The match head being the internal rubber in the tire, "organic material under pressure and heated" is what starts the process of pyrolysis.

Now that you think about it this is why tires explode from lightning strikes and powerline crane accidents, the internal tire is heated by the electricity.
http://www.miningmayhem.com/2010/09/lightning-strike-on-rear-dumper.html is an example.

 

[RobVG]

I really don't want to watch it.

 

[fast_st]

I recall a similar video from Canada. Welded a excavator wheel, all was fine until the welder attached the air chuck and added air to the super heated interior, the tire exploded and fragmented, killing the welder.

 

[JDOFMEMI]

Dirthauler:

The link to the truck struck by lightning is amazing.

Thank You. I knew the welding, and the power line strikes, but had not htought about lightning doing that to a tire. Those haul truck tires do serious damage!!! Broke 57 1" bolts!!!! Wow

 

[DirtHauler]

Dirthauler:

The link to the truck struck by lightning is amazing.

Thank You. I knew the welding, and the power line strikes, but had not htought about lightning doing that to a tire. Those haul truck tires do serious damage!!! Broke 57 1" bolts!!!! Wow

I was thinking about this today, it took 2 mins for the tires to explode. If you saw the truck get hit by lightning and walked over to see if everything was fine, that would be about the right amount of time to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Threw a 3600lbs wheel hub 300 feet AND broke the 57 1" grade 10 bolts? SCARY STUFF!!!

link again for those who missed it
http://www.miningmayhem.com/2010/09/lightning-strike-on-rear-dumper.html

 

[fast_st]

I found the article I was thinking of

http://www2.worksafebc.com/PDFs/investigations/IIR2005108320019.pdf

Worksafe BC has some excellent videos and they really lay it out unlike the osha folks down in the US. I can't even imagine the force to tear apart big quarry loader and industrial high pressure tires.

I would imagine warming up a lug nut or some heat around the center hub is one thing but getting the metal that's in contact with the rubber over 200C would be a really bad thing in a hurry. Compressed air=higher oxygen density and Boyles law takes care of the rest.

 

[jofc]

that worksafe BC incident report was actually from the town i grew up in. remember that day. Could hear the blast on the other side of town. Didn't know the exact details of what happened until now. Far as i remember, everyone blamed it on improper use of a split rim.

 

[Randy88]

Any rim needing welding on needs to be thrown away instead of being welded on, anybody willing to risk their life to save a few hundred bucks is beyond crazy in opinion. The rim I had that blew off my trailer a few years ago while driving had pits rusted in it where it attached to the dayton hubs from not being changed or rotated for years, it looked normal until you took it off the hub and examined it. It blew with such force it blew sideways 150ft and bent the axle as it went off and took part of the hub with it and lifted the trailer about 2 ft in the air as it went off. Thats the last time I ever worked on tires that still had air in them, we always let the air out before working on taking semi tires off, theres no way I'd ever work in front of a tire with air in it by sitting or standing there and putting the lug nuts on.

Just out of curiosity has any data been done about the tmperature inside a tire thats rolling down the interstate at 70mph thats not fully inflated and creates heat from that or just how hot the air temp inside the tires get during the dead of summer when they blow out while driving, I've never seen any data on that before I've even asked my tire supplier and he claims he doens't know. The same effect is true I would think about hot wheel bearings and checking the hubs and tires after you stop from seeing a smoking hub, I'd tend to sit back and wait a long time before sticking my hand down there to check for how hot the tire or hub would be but does anybody know if it would work the same way as welding on a rim? Its not a statement more of a question.

 

[fast_st]

Randy, I only tow with a 4 or 6 wheel pickup and a goose neck but on long trips I'll stop and check the tires, axles and hubs with a non contact temperature gauge. It really shows even side to side loading variances. I'll adjust the air pressure to keep the tire temps under 130-140f

 

[Randy88]

Anybody want to offer their two cents on the subject of letting the tire and rim cool naturally or dumping cold water on it to shock cool the set, I've done it both ways and was never really sure which was best, we've had wheel bearings go out and the rim and tire were so hot you couldn't touch them and always wondered if its better to shock cool the rim and tire or just stand back and let it naturally cool itself off, once they are on fire its a little late but we have caught them just before, never had one blow yet from it but it always makes you wonder just how close they are to going or if you were to attempt to let the air out if it would go off like a bomb about that time or not. The hotter they are the more you want to stand back and throw the water on rather than stand too close, in the winter we have had it happen and we toss snow on from a distance but just how safe of a practice is it. Anybody had one blow while cooling it off before? Fast_st, I'd never given it a thought to use the temp gun, its usually never in the vehicle I'm driving at the time though, I"d have to have a dozen of them or more to leave one in each but for long distance trips I'll remember to add it to the list of things to take along from here on out, thanks.

A friend of mine who drives truck for a living had a tire explode one time while he was using a cheater pipe to check for flat tires, as he reached in to beat on the inner dual the outer one blew, it set him on his *ss but didn't really hurt him, as he said it took him by surprise and he didn't know if the tire blowing put him on the ground or the shock of it he fell backwards and landed on his butt, either way he had to change his underware and as he said it had to be one in a million to have that happen at the time he was checking tires, but it does make you wonder?

 

[DirtHauler]

:badidea

Anybody want to offer their two cents on the subject of letting the tire and rim cool naturally or dumping cold water on it to shock cool the set, I've done it both ways and was never really sure which was best, we've had wheel bearings go out and the rim and tire were so hot you couldn't touch them and always wondered if its better to shock cool the rim and tire or just stand back and let it naturally cool itself off, once they are on fire its a little late but we have caught them just before, never had one blow yet from it but it always makes you wonder just how close they are to going or if you were to attempt to let the air out if it would go off like a bomb about that time or not. The hotter they are the more you want to stand back and throw the water on rather than stand too close, in the winter we have had it happen and we toss snow on from a distance but just how safe of a practice is it. Anybody had one blow while cooling it off before? Fast_st, I'd never given it a thought to use the temp gun, its usually never in the vehicle I'm driving at the time though, I"d have to have a dozen of them or more to leave one in each but for long distance trips I'll remember to add it to the list of things to take along from here on out, thanks.

A friend of mine who drives truck for a living had a tire explode one time while he was using a cheater pipe to check for flat tires, as he reached in to beat on the inner dual the outer one blew, it set him on his *ss but didn't really hurt him, as he said it took him by surprise and he didn't know if the tire blowing put him on the ground or the shock of it he fell backwards and landed on his butt, either way he had to change his underware and as he said it had to be one in a million to have that happen at the time he was checking tires, but it does make you wonder?

Honestly, I would just get away from it and stay away from it. The thought of "shock cooling" something under pressure is crazy. Would you dump water on an air tank with 100psi in it that was so hot you worried about it setting fire to rubber? Seriously just get away and stay away, once cool, dismount the tire and put the wheel out of service forever.

 

[tireman]

Go ahead and give it a try then,if you're so unconvinced.Some people just think they know everything.

 

[oldtanker]

Some people learn from reading.......some learn from observing......some just gotta pee on that electric fence to find out fer sure!

Rick

 

[tireman]

You are so right,oldtanker.I guarantee that he's NEVER been in the vicinity of an exploding tire.I've had a couple go on me,so I can attest first hand.Had a 23.1-26 off a log skidder blow on me(bead broke) with less than 20PSI in it.It threw me higher than the ROPS on the skidder.Came down head first on the corner of the stacker blade right above my right eye,fractured my skull in 4 places.Very lucky that's all that happened.Let a tire with 100PSI or more let go on you and you are going for one heck of a ride.He sounds like some of those old timers who used to stand right next to me as I aired up a split-rim and tell me they've seen one come apart and take a guys head off.B.S.!!!!!If someone has seen that first hand,they would never be near one,let alone stand right over one.ANYTHING under pressure is a bomb waiting to go off,and when it does,it's instantaneous-not one split second to react.Finding out "fer sure" and living to tell about it are two totally different things.

 

[LuNaTIcFrEAk]

I have 17 years in the wheel industry and have been involved in more investigations than I can ever remember, the most common factor in most cases is lack of training or inexperience with wheels and tires. If you are unsure don't do it.

Also its not just welding, any heat source can trigger this. I have some brutal pictures of two unfortunate men who heated some lug nuts to remove them, the heat transferred through the wheel steel and they didn't live to tell the tale.

I have Michelin videos of tires blowing up and throwing a crash test dummy through the air, but they are to large a file size to upload here. One of them has a remote camera inside the tire showing the reaction start.