Re-sealing a 2/3 piece rim

[Alex]

I'm trying to figure out the order of operations for re-sealing my front 2 piece rim.

1 - What's the best way to clean off the silicone? everything i read says don't do this, don't do that (don't wire wheel, don't scrape w/ exacto knife, don't use red scotchbrite, etc... etc..)

2 - After cleaning the surface, do I bolt and torque the rim together then silicone and smooth out with my finger, or do I run the silicone along the edge, then bolt it together, smooth it out with my finger, let it cure for an hour or two and torque to spec? Or something else i havn't thought of?

 

[Jack]

It's been done many ways Alex. Regardless, you'll have to get the old silicone off the matching wheel parts. Apply a bead of sealer (GE 5000 if you can get it) to both mating surfaces.

Give it a little cure time (10 min is plenty) and reassemble USING THE REFERENCE MARKS THAT YOU HAVE MADE, usually just a pencil line.

Please use BLUE locktite on the fasteners. Wait a day or two before remounting the tires to ensure a full cure.

Anyone else wishing to add to this??

 

[Cam]

I saw where prosoco di9 was used to take off silicone adhesive, but it looks to have a little phosphoric and sulfonic acid. that woudl probably eat into the Al a bit but might turn the silicone into goo where you can take it off with elbow grease. Silicone is a great adhesive so even if there were small areas eaten into the rim, it woudl fill them just fine. maybe razor blade it at a grazing angle then dissolve the remainder quickly with di9 and quick elbow grease? THF looks to be an organic solvent that can attack Si but not easy to find. organics woudl be less likely to attack the Al.

PROSOCO, Inc.

 

[marc]

Alex,
I would metal to metal, check for runout then silicone after I did the fasteners Jacks way. Runout is more important than silicone in between.

 

[Ian Anderson]

Back in my karting days we bolted the rims together dry.

On one portion we has an o ring

Once bolted together roll the o ring down to seal the joint

Worked extremely well in the karts

Ian

 

[Alex]

I sat there for an hour and scrapped away with a little plastic putty knife, then cleaned thoroughly with acetone. It would have gone a lot faster if I could have used some gasket remover, but I've seen it peel powercoat after sitting on it for a half-second, so i opted for the long and tedious removal processes.

Now I've just got to figure out if the proper way is bolt the 2 pieces together dry or wet. Hmmm, as usual half my researc says one way, the other half the other way.

It's been done many ways Alex. Regardless, you'll have to get the old silicone off the matching wheel parts. Apply a bead of sealer (GE 5000 if you can get it) to both mating surfaces.

Give it a little cure time (10 min is plenty) and reassemble USING THE REFERENCE MARKS THAT YOU HAVE MADE, usually just a pencil line.

Please use BLUE locktite on the fasteners. Wait a day or two before remounting the tires to ensure a full cure.

Anyone else wishing to add to this??

The factory didn't use any loctite on any of the bolts - wat I've read seems split on it; some say use it, some say don't. I'm going to assume since they didn't use any its not necessary. Plus I imagine if you use it if you dissassemble down the road you'll have to run a cleaning tap into every hole to get out any dried loctite left behind, otherwise you run the risk of it gumming up at the bottom of the blind hole.

Alex,
I would metal to metal, check for runout then silicone after I did the fasteners Jacks way. Runout is more important than silicone in between.

I don't know what runout means?

 

[Ed Davis]

YouTube has lots of tutorials on rebuilding 3 piece wheels.

 

[Mark Hamstra]

I don't know what runout means?

Runout

 

[Alex]

Spoke w/ the factory and they advised to bolt the rim dry, torque to 8-10ft-lbs w/o any loctite, then run the silicone and smooth it out with your finger and let it cure.

There ya have it.

 

[Jack]

Spoke w/ the factory and they advised to bolt the rim dry, torque to 8-10ft-lbs w/o any loctite, then run the silicone and smooth it out with your finger and let it cure.

There ya have it.

That's funny because I thought you had to remove the old silicone from the joint.

 

[Alex]

That's funny because I thought you had to remove the old silicone from the joint.

You have to remove the old silicone from the groove, but there's no silicone around the bolt holes or anything past the grooved area

 

[Jack]

You have to remove the old silicone from the groove, but there's no silicone around the bolt holes or anything past the grooved area

Cool!

 

[Ian Anderson]

It is a lot easier to remove an O ring than sillicone

Ian