Looking at buying a set of 50's Buick rims from someone who says salvage yard may have burned the tires off. Question is, if so, would this hurt the structural integrity of the rim. Don't have pictures yet or else would share them. Thoughts?
Tire fires are very hot. Assume the rims are bent badly, figure a way to bolt them to an axle and spin them to check runout before buying
Even if they look OK, that kind of heat might actually change the molecular structure of the metal making it more brittle than normal and prone to cracking.
yea, my thoughts too, but the guy says it is standard practice to burn them off. Maybe for salvage metal but for usable rims??? I don't know>>>
................I'm no chemist but, I think you're right in that while they are hot they are softer but what happens when they cool down.
Yeah,it is a common practice with salvage yard but it's also a easy way of removing the tires before the metal is scrapped. HRP
They're most likely annealed now (softer than O.E.) so they'd never last in Motown. We have pot holes so big homeless folks can live in em.
I'd agree, pass on those as they are only good for scrap. Back when I was a kid and long before that the city dump was in a canyon up in the hills about five miles from my house and the guys at the dump burned out cars that people had left there to scrap them. the wheels on them were pretty rough after they had had the tires burned off them.
That sounds like an insane way to get the tires off. It would seem like it would be quicker and cleaner to just use a breaker bar or machine to do it. Tire fires cause some of the blackest, thickest smoke I've scene. Plus, it got to take longer for it to burn then it would be to do it right. Sounds lazy.
Lots of weird crap goes on in the 'yard. I went into one to get a heater core for a Falcon... no problem. The yard guy took it out of the car with a fireman's axe...
OK, sounds pretty unanimous, me thinks I will pass. They were a screaming good deal is the only reason I inquired about them in the first place but after hearing they were subjected to no telling what degree of heat had second thoughts. THANKS guys for you input. Always impressed with how much experience and know how is on this site. And how many respond and quickly. Thanks again!!!!
Yep scrap yard owners are a different sort of people. I went to the yard one time for a motor mount and while I was there they were busy torching the front end off of a '57 Chevy for the front suspension. they loaded it up frame stubs and all in the back of a fellas truck. Of course they did cut the core support and what was left of the rest of the stuff off first.
Good Lord. Leave em be. I worked at a yard in the 70's. We removed engines and trannys as a unit. Peel the hood back with the yart truck, wrap a chain around the engine and lift and drop till the poor thing just popped out. I'll probably smoke a turd in purgatory for those cars I wrecked.
Back in the 80's I had a "mini salvage yard" about 50 cars, turned out I was not in compliance with the local zoning laws, I was zoned rural and to have a salvage yard I would have had to be zoned Heavy Industrial, a long interesting story but most of you wouldn't care to hear it. Anyway, I had the cars crushed but they left the gas tanks, wheels and tires and I needed to dispose of those so I used the wheels with tires to burn out stumps, the wheel would be glowing red as the tire burned, those wheels make good hose racks and grinder stands at best.
Burning tires? Frankly, I'm more surprised that the local EPA clean-air-Nazis haven't shut the place down.... .
That's what I was thinking , around here , you burn a tire & you'll have 10 black suburbans w/ epa guys in haz-mat suits on your property in minutes !! dave
i heard about a forge [?] in upstate new york that put tires on rims into a hopper and light it. the burning tires melt the steel.
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