Groove worn into the wheel bore

[davet]

Hey all,
Re-prepping some wheels and finding out of 8, only 2 are looking good. The others all have a smooth groove around the inner circumference of the bore about 1/2 way between front and back. Some the groove goes all the way around. Others the groove goes 1/2 to 3/4 of the way around. These are BASX wheels with aftermarket grooved axles. One set run on .091 grooved axles and the other set run on .093 grooved axles.

One of the wheels that is good was on the raised position so it saw no runs really. The other one that's still good was on a RR axle and has about 30 runs on it. The groove is smooth with rounded edges as if a ball bearing was spinning around and polishing it. I've never seen this before running our own grooved axles and stock BSA wheels in the several years leading up to this.

Is it a mold defect (polish and run it) or are the axles causing it? It doesn't seem like the axles can cause it because it doesn't match the profile of the axle journals.

 

[GravityX]

More than likely a mold concern. Polish and go with it. There is a thread somewhere on this board that speaks of this condition with the wheel bore. In the thread, it was stated, these wheels were slightly faster than the non-defect bores.

 

[davet]

More than likely a mold concern. Polish and go with it. There is a thread somewhere on this board that speaks of this condition with the wheel bore. In the thread, it was stated, these wheels were slightly faster than the non-defect bores.

Thanks GravityX. My archaic measurements seem to put the bore-groove right in the middle of the axle groove. We'll run them and I'll have to dig the first one I discovered out of the garbage. Funny I don't remember seeing this when we prepped the first time. These are wheels with molds 7, though one of the 7's is good, 13, 6 and 1.

 

[davet]

I found it. Here is the post below. It's from COOPER in the Wheels and Axles section. Sorry, I don't know how to link the thread here. Seems as GravityX says...all is well.

"I've grown tired of sorting through wheels looking for decent ones. We've got pretty strict rules, so I ordered 4 sets of unmodified "dynasty BASX tall" wheels from DD4H. We have Districts this weekend, so I was hoping to use them. They all arrived yesterday. 16 wheels, all #3 molds and all 16 wheels have the same defect!

Anyone who's gone through wheels before has probably seen this. When you look through the bore under magnification, the light reflection looks straight. Spin the wheel 180 degrees and look down a different part of the bore, the light reflection bends.

I even cut a wheel in half to better understand what the issue is.. There's definitely a small indentation on part of the wheel bore that no amount of polishing is going to fix without significantly increasing the bore diameter. I polished a set up anyway, and they're just not as fast as a random matched set (#6) from kits that I had kicking around.

Is there any way to salvage these?"

 

[GravityX]

Here is the link: Bore Defects

 

[Vitamin K]

Looks like the "bore squish" is pretty common.

 

[Pacfanweb]

This is an older thread, but wouldn't these "dents" in the bore actually be a good thing?

It's like having a groove in the axle. I would think the less of the wheel bore that can touch the axle shaft, the better....right?

Heck, I'm mildly surprised some enterprising micro-machinist hasn't made a tool to cut the inside of the bores so the only place the bore touches the axles are at the outer ends.

 

[BulldogRacing]

I don't like grooves in my bore. Babies butt man.

 

[~JBD RACING~]

I like small dips in the middle of my wheels bores ..

 

[bracketracer]

I don't like grooves in my bore. Babies butt man.

I'll take any grooved wheels that you don't want!

 

[Crash Enburn]

All of my babies' butts had grooves. /images/boards/smilies/eek.gif

 

[B_Regal Racing]