The Pakistani Truck repair videos often have crazy stuff going on in them, like the one where they mount a whole rear axle housing in the lathe. We laugh, and cringe, when we watch them but sometimes the results are far better than anyone would believe. In this video they are taking a big rig wheel and cutting the cracked center out of it and welding in a new one. Well I say new, but what I mean is “not cracked”. Of course I wonder how messed up the other wheel had to be to give up its center but not be good enough to just bolt on the truck in need of a wheel. And if you have been to any metal recyclers in the last decade you know that there are JILLIONS of Alcoa aluminum big rig wheels piled up for recycling. Of course that is here in the States, and I guess that isn’t the case in Pakistan. So, creativity and skills are required to get some of their stuff back in order so it will run down the road.
In this video you’ll see the wheel mounted up, spun on the lathe, cut from both the inside and out, and then the new center prepped and welded in place. Of course, to make sure the thing actually runs true on the truck means some facing has to be done as well. Watch and be impressed.
Wow! Was I the only one scared when he was airing that thing up?
Howard, I was scared too! Those rings will decapitate you if they fly. When I worked at the garage, some of the workers were asking the boss for a cage to put the split rims in for inflation, but Boss insisted that if we installed the ring correctly, it will never fly. Then one day, one went sailing 30′ across the garage, hit the concrete wall, went back 30′ the other way, bounced of that wall and went another 20′ before it hit the ground, narrowly missing a couple guys and a car. Sure it was someones fault for installing wrong, but who cares if someone gets killed? A week later, the cage showed up.
Love the runout indicator in the begining!
It’s interesting that these videos are shot in little specialized job shops and each one has some ingenious, custom tools for the job