Joe
08-09-2008, 11:20 AM
Okay I’ve had quite a few people ask me how to do this, so I thought I’d put all the info in one thread! :)
You can disassemble and reassemble your own 3 piece wheels without having to take them to a professional! It’s not hard, just takes a lot of patience and some care.
A proper 3 piece rim is made up of an outer rim half, inner rim half, and the centre.
http://www.tirerack.com/images/wheels/tech/oz_3piece/assembly.jpg
There are a number of rim bolts which seat on the wheel centre, go through the whole assembly, and are fastened with a serrated nut bolted to the back of the mounting surface of the inner rim.
The outer and inner halves are sealed with a bead of sealant around the outside (which you can’t see once your tyre is mounted), and sometimes a gasket or a thin layer of sealant in between the mounting surfaces of the two halves. This helps to hold air in the tyre, without leaks. The rim bolts being tightened also assist in creating a good seal.
Here is how you do it.
Disassembling the rim centres.
To disassemble them, you first deflate your tyres but KEEP THEM MOUNTED. This prevents the rim halves from separating when you remove the centres.
In the case of my Work wheels, an 8mm 12 point socket was the right fit for the bolt, and a 10mm 6 point socket was the right size for the nut. Make sure you undo them from the BOLT head, not the nut….this is because the nut is serrated and bites into the surface where it is mounted. Once you’ve undone these, the outers should lift straight out, or if the rims are bit older and are stuck, a tap with a rubber mallet.
At this point, you can send your bolts off to be chromed or painted, or you can buy new ones. Be warned though, they are high grade and specific sizes, so you must buy them from your wheel manufacturer. The Work ones cost around $3 each, so it gets expensive. The old ones ARE reuseable though.
Reassembling the rim centres
When putting the rims back together, its time to do the bolts back up. You can do them in a clock pattern i.e. 12 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 9 o’clock, 3 o’clock, but its easier and acceptable to do them up in a rotational sequence, skipping every 2nd or 3rd bolt. Don’t do them up one after another, just to be safe.
You NEED to do this with a torque wrench. The final torque will be approx 27nm, but make sure you do them up a bit at a time. If you hit them with 27nm to start off with, you’ll strip them. Start at 15nm, and go up by steps of 3nm. This takes a LONG time, i.e., you’ll have to tighten each bolt 5 times on each rim in steps, but its definitely worth doing it properly.
AGAIN, don't touch the nut....its serrated. Tighten them up from the bolt head! You'll find that once you've done the first torquing, you won't have to hold the nuts in place with a socket any more, as the serrated mounting surface of the nut does that for you. If the nuts aren't serrated for some reason, just use a socket and ratchet, or ring spanner, to hold them in place while you're torquing the bolts.
Use light grade Loctite just to be safe, a drop on each bolt is sufficient, as the serrated nuts and the proper torquing will see that the bolts don’t loosen up regardless.
Disassembling the rim halves.
If you want to paint the centres, you don’t need to split the rim halves, rather, you only need to remove the centre from the halves. If you want to repolish the outer rim, you need to do a full disassembly.
Its simple. Do the centre disassembly as above, then strip the tyres off. Once you’ve done this, you’ll see a bead of silicon that seals the rim halves. Get a sharp knife or razor blade, and put a slice down the middle of the silicon bead. You then pull the halves apart. Simple as that!
Reassembling the rim halves.
To do this, you need to reseal the rims. Not hard! Just make sure the surfaces where the silicon was, are perfectly clean. You’ll need to scrape the remaining silicon off the rim halves, and wipe the rest clean with acetone or metho if you want to use a slightly less harsh solvent. They need to be spotless. Spray with brake cleaner just to be sure, and wipe clean.
IF your rims had a gasket in between the halves originally, you’ll need to fit new ones. These can be bought from the manufacturer of the rims.
IF your rims had a thin layer of sealant in between the mounting surfaces of the halves originally, you’ll need to put a fine layer of sealant down on the mounting lip or surface, BEFORE you re-assemble and torque the rims back up.….any good, neutral cure RTV multi-surface sealant should do, but most manufacturers use Dow Corning 832 as OEM, which is hard to get in Aus. Don’t use Selleys All-Clear.
IF your rims had nothing in between the mounting surfaces of the halves, then that’s fine.
Once you have determined this and done this step, bolt the halves and the centres together properly, as per above. Torque them down, etc.
Then, get your sealant and put a thin bead of it in the “valley” or the “crack” between the rim halves (this will be around the outer diameter of the rim), all the way around. Get a blunt knife and run it along the bead of sealant, to force it into the crack. If its more like a valley (all wheels are slightly different on how the surface looks where they mount), use a wet finger instead.
Run your knife or finger along the bead of sealant, to force it into the crack. Once you’re sure its forced into the crack as much as it can go, run another, slightly bigger bead of silicon around the rim, and smooth that out with a wet finger also. Make sure the crack is filled, and well covered by the silicon. Let it 100% dry according to the manufacturers instructions, before you mount tyres and fill them with air.
Easy as! Any questions, just ask.
You can disassemble and reassemble your own 3 piece wheels without having to take them to a professional! It’s not hard, just takes a lot of patience and some care.
A proper 3 piece rim is made up of an outer rim half, inner rim half, and the centre.
http://www.tirerack.com/images/wheels/tech/oz_3piece/assembly.jpg
There are a number of rim bolts which seat on the wheel centre, go through the whole assembly, and are fastened with a serrated nut bolted to the back of the mounting surface of the inner rim.
The outer and inner halves are sealed with a bead of sealant around the outside (which you can’t see once your tyre is mounted), and sometimes a gasket or a thin layer of sealant in between the mounting surfaces of the two halves. This helps to hold air in the tyre, without leaks. The rim bolts being tightened also assist in creating a good seal.
Here is how you do it.
Disassembling the rim centres.
To disassemble them, you first deflate your tyres but KEEP THEM MOUNTED. This prevents the rim halves from separating when you remove the centres.
In the case of my Work wheels, an 8mm 12 point socket was the right fit for the bolt, and a 10mm 6 point socket was the right size for the nut. Make sure you undo them from the BOLT head, not the nut….this is because the nut is serrated and bites into the surface where it is mounted. Once you’ve undone these, the outers should lift straight out, or if the rims are bit older and are stuck, a tap with a rubber mallet.
At this point, you can send your bolts off to be chromed or painted, or you can buy new ones. Be warned though, they are high grade and specific sizes, so you must buy them from your wheel manufacturer. The Work ones cost around $3 each, so it gets expensive. The old ones ARE reuseable though.
Reassembling the rim centres
When putting the rims back together, its time to do the bolts back up. You can do them in a clock pattern i.e. 12 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 9 o’clock, 3 o’clock, but its easier and acceptable to do them up in a rotational sequence, skipping every 2nd or 3rd bolt. Don’t do them up one after another, just to be safe.
You NEED to do this with a torque wrench. The final torque will be approx 27nm, but make sure you do them up a bit at a time. If you hit them with 27nm to start off with, you’ll strip them. Start at 15nm, and go up by steps of 3nm. This takes a LONG time, i.e., you’ll have to tighten each bolt 5 times on each rim in steps, but its definitely worth doing it properly.
AGAIN, don't touch the nut....its serrated. Tighten them up from the bolt head! You'll find that once you've done the first torquing, you won't have to hold the nuts in place with a socket any more, as the serrated mounting surface of the nut does that for you. If the nuts aren't serrated for some reason, just use a socket and ratchet, or ring spanner, to hold them in place while you're torquing the bolts.
Use light grade Loctite just to be safe, a drop on each bolt is sufficient, as the serrated nuts and the proper torquing will see that the bolts don’t loosen up regardless.
Disassembling the rim halves.
If you want to paint the centres, you don’t need to split the rim halves, rather, you only need to remove the centre from the halves. If you want to repolish the outer rim, you need to do a full disassembly.
Its simple. Do the centre disassembly as above, then strip the tyres off. Once you’ve done this, you’ll see a bead of silicon that seals the rim halves. Get a sharp knife or razor blade, and put a slice down the middle of the silicon bead. You then pull the halves apart. Simple as that!
Reassembling the rim halves.
To do this, you need to reseal the rims. Not hard! Just make sure the surfaces where the silicon was, are perfectly clean. You’ll need to scrape the remaining silicon off the rim halves, and wipe the rest clean with acetone or metho if you want to use a slightly less harsh solvent. They need to be spotless. Spray with brake cleaner just to be sure, and wipe clean.
IF your rims had a gasket in between the halves originally, you’ll need to fit new ones. These can be bought from the manufacturer of the rims.
IF your rims had a thin layer of sealant in between the mounting surfaces of the halves originally, you’ll need to put a fine layer of sealant down on the mounting lip or surface, BEFORE you re-assemble and torque the rims back up.….any good, neutral cure RTV multi-surface sealant should do, but most manufacturers use Dow Corning 832 as OEM, which is hard to get in Aus. Don’t use Selleys All-Clear.
IF your rims had nothing in between the mounting surfaces of the halves, then that’s fine.
Once you have determined this and done this step, bolt the halves and the centres together properly, as per above. Torque them down, etc.
Then, get your sealant and put a thin bead of it in the “valley” or the “crack” between the rim halves (this will be around the outer diameter of the rim), all the way around. Get a blunt knife and run it along the bead of sealant, to force it into the crack. If its more like a valley (all wheels are slightly different on how the surface looks where they mount), use a wet finger instead.
Run your knife or finger along the bead of sealant, to force it into the crack. Once you’re sure its forced into the crack as much as it can go, run another, slightly bigger bead of silicon around the rim, and smooth that out with a wet finger also. Make sure the crack is filled, and well covered by the silicon. Let it 100% dry according to the manufacturers instructions, before you mount tyres and fill them with air.
Easy as! Any questions, just ask.