Slow leak caused by corrosion at bead on alloys?

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Aug 3, 2003
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Had a slow leak recently. It took tire store 4 tries to fix it but they said that there was corrosion at the bead. The wheels are 3 year old aluminum alloys. There are absolutely no visible signs, wheels look good as new.
Anybody ever heard of this with alloys?
 
Yep. Used to happen all the time at the garage I worked at. There would be a bunch of powdery aluminum oxide growing on the bead sealing surface.
 
easily could happen. Also matters to get the bead rubber supple and well lubed, good and warm and wet.
 
It easily happens, especially in the rust belt. There are some magical goos that they can put on a rim as a temporary band-aid, but it's only a short, temporary fix and I wouldn't try it on anything that I drive.
 
Yes, it's possible and common in some areas.

I fixed this many, many times when I worked in a tire shop in college.
 
If you think that's bad try aluminum wheels that are plated with farless maliable unforgiving chrome. My mothers 97 Lexus ES300 has the same problem
cry.gif
 
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Bad chrome plating on stock wheels causing leaks forced my brother in law to replace all of them with aftermarket ones on his Escalade. It happens.
 
Two years ago I removed all four rims and dismounted the tires because of a rim leak on my 91 Marquis. All four aluminum rims had corrosion at the sealing bead. Sandblasting and repaint took care of that for a good while.

I've done the same thing with steel rims. I agree that the goo treatment or wire wheeling will only buy a bit of time before the problem recurs. Sandblast and repaint is the superior way to go if you have the tools.

Corrosion happens to be the worst right at the sealing bead because of a phenomenon called crevice corrosion, where corrosion is worse at tight gaps than on plain surfaces.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
The use of bead sealer is very common in the salt belt.
Something like this will last until the tire is dismounted. Tire shops use Camel brand product a lot.



Can this be applied after the fact? Like put a leaky tire in a water bath, find the leak, and then slather the area with this?
 
Absolutely. The trick to fix this is to dismount the tire and wire wheel/brush the rim bead until it is clean and also the tire bead to rough up the surface a bit. Then the liquid bead sealant can be applied to both the rim and tire beads and the tire can be mounted and aired up.

This is also done only when the tire is at ambient room temp. Otherwise the bead sealant won't adhere to the tire or rim.
 
Did the tire bead seal thing when I did tires at Sears a lot. There were some wheels, especially the Mercedes chrome wheels that would leak like crazy from the beads. The Mercedes chrome wheels use to have the chrome peel off in huge strips, I was told by a Mercedes parts guy that if they did that, it wasn't factory chrome.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Trav
The use of bead sealer is very common in the salt belt.
Something like this will last until the tire is dismounted. Tire shops use Camel brand product a lot.



Can this be applied after the fact? Like put a leaky tire in a water bath, find the leak, and then slather the area with this?


I've gotten away with this. Helpful if you don't want to disturb the balance. It's not as good as dismounting and sanding, but it's a good quick desperate hack.
 
Wheels should be wire brushed every time the tire is off the bead. We never put a tire on anything without the rim being wire brushed first. Only takes a couple extra seconds to run the rim around two more times on the machine with the air wire brush cleaning as it went around.

A lot of shops skip the cleaning and just mount the tires to save time and money. Or their techs are not trained well and ruin too much with the brush.

Chrome wheels give a lot of troubles as well. We had the most issues with cadillac wheels.

We would use Tech Bead Sealer when needed.

http://www.nwsalesgroup.com/product/238.aspx
 
Originally Posted By: durallymax
Wheels should be wire brushed every time the tire is off the bead. We never put a tire on anything without the rim being wire brushed first.

Ouch.. That may be acceptable for steel wheels, alloy wheels on the other hand are clear cloated, just like the paint on a car, care should be taken not to damage that protective coating.

An air powered wire brush can burn through the clear coat in short order.
 
Aluminum wheels should NEVER be wire brushed. Any bead cleaning should be with a rouge wheel and soft compound.

Wire brushing an aluminum wheel is a guarantee for more frequent future bead leaks and replacement of wheels.
 
Originally Posted By: Rock_Hudstone
Originally Posted By: durallymax
Wheels should be wire brushed every time the tire is off the bead. We never put a tire on anything without the rim being wire brushed first.

Ouch.. That may be acceptable for steel wheels, alloy wheels on the other hand are clear cloated, just like the paint on a car, care should be taken not to damage that protective coating.

An air powered wire brush can burn through the clear coat in short order.


If corrosion is present obviously the clear coat is not present to begin with or failed at doing its job. We cleaned the wheels. If they were clean to begin with they didn't need cleaning. Living in the rust belt, they all needed it. Rarely did a clean wheel come in. most were on Corvettes or other cars that didn't see salt.

In case others are confused we only cleaned the beads, not the corrosion on the face of the wheel.

Again, you also stress my point about having the proper training with employees as well.
 
Originally Posted By: MI_Roger
Aluminum wheels should NEVER be wire brushed. Any bead cleaning should be with a rouge wheel and soft compound.

Wire brushing an aluminum wheel is a guarantee for more frequent future bead leaks and replacement of wheels.


Not being a ****, but curious. I wasn't a lifer there. Only worked there for a couple years, but the process we had in place was one of the better ones in town and we frequently fixed other shops negligence. However I can't recall replacing rims due to wire brushing.

Do you know how long it would take to clean the beads on 8 24.5s with soft compound? I don't think the customer would want to pay that bill. Granted were talking car tires, but you say all aluminum wheels. So I am curious. Do you run a tire shop using this process? Again not trying to be a ****, but there is the consumer way, the lazy business way, and the best mix of both. Consumers research the best way to do things. If it takes them a day so be it. Lazy people look for the quickest buck in the business. The best mix approach looks at the right way to do it, and implements the most important aspects in order to provide the best service at the proper price. It took us longer than other shops to do tire repairs. Many people would ask why we don't just push a plug in like the other shop and send them on their way. They would complain about the cost as well. At the end of the day, its your name on your work. If the customer doesn't like it too bad, but at the same time you can be waiting around for paint to dry on a steel wheel like your training would tell you.

Reminds me of the TIA handbook. All steel wheels are supposed to be wire brushed by hand, then repainted completely, allowed to dry and then a tire installed. I never met someone who did that professionally. That would take hours.
 
Originally Posted by MI_Roger
Aluminum wheels should NEVER be wire brushed. Any bead cleaning should be with a rouge wheel and soft compound.

Wire brushing an aluminum wheel is a guarantee for more frequent future bead leaks and replacement of wheels.

So, HOW to clean those bends?

Would you suggest using polycarbite ?

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