Bogie Wheel Re-rubbering

[Scott Hamilton]

I have come across this company in Toowoomba that can do re-rubbering of vintage / military bogie wheels.

Just would like to know if anyone has used them and is the quality up to a good standard?

What are they like price wise?

http://bigtyre.com.au/wheels/vintage

[Dale Jordan]

PM sent Dale

[ron]

Hi scott, I set this up with Big Tyre a few years ago and they have done quite a few for me excellent product and a fine firm to deal with, regards Ron

[Stew Robertson]

Ron :
Do you mind if I ask the cost per wheel
Thanks

[ron]

Hi Stew when I first got them done they were a bit over $300 AUST each since gone up a bit in price, dale had a few done in recent times , i think that they would now be about $320, but well worth the money sure makes the carrier look good I always had them done and fitted new old stock track, it completes the restoration, and after all you only ever do it once, regards Ron

[RichCam]

Hello Ron,
So $300 Australian is pretty close to $300 Canadian - correct? (Plus shipping)
Do you know if they are polyurethane or are they rubber?
Regards, Richard

[ron]

Hi Richm,Yes the rate of exchange is about the same, they are rubber, and a first class job,, by the way I have dozens of wheels here, 5 and 6 spoke, they will get re done when I need them Regards ron

[Dale Jordan]

The price is $350 AUD take out the bearings degrease leave the old rubber on the wheels they do the rest .. if you have a set to do it can take a couple of weeks as they only do one at a time , very, very ,good people to deal with . Dale

[RichCam]

Hello Ron and Dale,
Thank you for your positive references of Big Tyre. Sounds like they can do a very good job for re-rubbering military tires in the Australia/New Zealand area.
I was fortunate enough to pick up Stew Robertson's steel casting for universal carrier bogie wheels. I've purchased a 2 part black polyurethane starter kit and some 3M Silicone mould release spray. I'm going to strip one of my surplus wheels to the rim and give the mould a try. I will post some pictures for comparison. This may help some Canadian carriers owners with re-rubbering wheels on this side of the pond.
Cheers, Richard.

[RichardT10829]

I am busy going through the mould process for people in the UK. I have one wheel stripped ready to go so will update how it pans out.

[ron]

Wheels and tracks, Mmmm that could make a good title for a magazine, A few years ago I also looked into re casting carrier track and got some very good quotes, not for my self as I had many sets of N O S track, but all I got was requests from tyre kickers so I gave it up as a bad joke, its the one major item that will spoil all the work that we put into our hobby , I guess one day someone will give it another go, the best way I think is to get a good group of freinds together to share the cost of the moulds, and sell the track at a reonable price,that all can afford not rip off prices, that was my idea, but it was early in the piece, and not much interest in those days, but as it was then and is now you have to think of the future, lesson over

[chris vickery]

Hi Ron
The problem with the hobby is that there are so many levels of restoration going on that only the purists among us are ever willing to shell out real money for quality.
This is especially complicated in a relatively small niche market which spans the globe.
As far as carrier wheel re-rubber, it would be fantastic I'm sure for some fellows here in Canada, the UK and Australia. Unfortunately, the cost and feasibility of sourcing and having it all done in one place makes it unreasonable and it needs to be sourced locally.
I would think that rather than re-inventing the wheel (pun intended), would it not make sense for guys in the UK or Canada to get in touch with the manufacturer in Australia or the customer and perhaps obtain the specifications for the molds that were used and the techniques? It is likely that the developement of the molds make up the bulk of the manufacturing costs and with todays technology and the advent of cad/cam etc and data files it would be as simple as having blueprints forwarded to the appropriate vendor to reproduce suitable molds for use locally..
For this perhaps a cost sharing or licensing fee would be appropriate to cover the original development price...
The same would be applicable to development of track castings as well. I am sure a firm in China would be happy to oblige!

[Andrew Rowe]

I have looked into doing moulds here in New Zealand. The cost was NZ$5750 for the mould for local pattern wheels with an insert in the mould for another NZ$1450 so that English / Canadian could be cast from the same mould.
Original English wheels seem to test out at 75 Shore hardness on average.
I was looking at using Black coloured polyurethane elastomer with mechanical properties as good, if not exceeding the original rubber. This project still sits in the melting pot! There is also on going research into the casting of tracks in China, but I do not see this happening any time soon.

[Dale Jordan]

Hi Andrew how would it go sending a couple of pallets of wheel by ship to OZ. The freight may not be that bad . The wheels are 32 Kg Each. Dale

[RichardT10829]

I have gone down the "china" route for tracks before, but you are still looking at 10K plus to get some made up.

There is a chap in Germany making ww2 track but the tooling costs alone were 15k. And you got a penalty for low numbers of links (ie anything less than 1000 links)

[Dave Schindel]

I used 2 part polyurethane to do 2 wheels and they are working out very well.After being run for several miles it's hard to tell the original rubber from the poly.the hard part was finding a supplier for the poly. I made a mould using fiberglass and a good wheel,then cleaned up a rim, installed the mould, and poured the poly.

[Andrew Rowe]

Yes Dale, I recon that is the best option for guys over here, if wheels need to get done , is to strip them here of old rubber and send them to Aus, or maybe cheaper to buy old rims in Aus, so there is only a one way trip.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

I recall Nigel Watson telling me about a company which remolded his carrier wheel(s): wrap a rubber strip around the wheel until it has the required diameter, cure the rubber and then machine it to shape on a CNC lathe. There is no need for a mould, so perfect for one offs or a small run. Has anyone looked into this?

H.

[Ben]

I had the 30's dated wheels re rubbered on the Scout using the method Hanno described, it's worked very well and looks great. The mould is a quicker and cheaper option after the initial outlay of the mould. The mould will be the key to a nice job but once it exists you can knock out as many as you like comparatively cheaply.

Out of interest the old chap warned me against using polyurethane as it has a tendency to "chunk" if the wheel ever caught something hard. I showed him a rubber original that has lost a chunk of sidewall and he said the same thing would happen but in his opinion the chunks would be worse for the same given incident. Both would ultimately do the same job.

Ben

[RichardT10829]

Have looked into the wrapping method and it's an expensive way to do it, and again you get penalised for small numbers machining costs get you in the end.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Carrier owners willing to pay shipping from the Netherlands may want to consider the option offered by Roy van Dorp - see re-rubbered bogie wheels and several other threads. I know there is at least one MLU member in the UK who has bought re-rubbered wheels from the Netherlands, and several within the country. Note: I have no personal interests in this.

I did meet Roy on the XXX Corps run and he knows his restoration stuff

Hanno

[Dale Jordan]

Two options in Australia for re rubbering. Here are a couple photos of my carrier wheels from Hugh Davis ex Bob Moseley moulded tyres . I have three of these on my carrier they are top notch as well , you give him your old wheels for exchange for new wheel which are in stock . Dale

[RichardT10829]

They look excellent.... Really miss Bob's input here

[ron]

As a matter of fact I have a stack of wheels here, so Andrews idea is I think the best option , regarding the one way trip to save on freight,there is no need to consider the China option regarding track it can be done here no problem, just need a few guys to put up the cash and share the cost of the patterns and mould and keep the product at home, at some time everyone is going to require peplacement track, so it is really an investment in the future, regards Ron

[Stew Robertson]

I am of the same mind, Ron do it at home it is a lot cheaper in the long run.

I made a mold and poured a complete set carrier wheels using 80 duro polyurethane which was the same material used by the stamping industry for pressure plates and will take millions of compression hits before failure
The poly is a lot more durable than the rubber
The one I did have about 100 miles on them and still look like new
no sign of chips wear or nicks
If I can remember I will try to post some pics over the weekend
The same can be said about track every one of our countries have casting shop, why send it to China
The steel mold was so good there is not machining and you can pop out a wheel every hour if you are so inclined
to remove the rubber I just took a gear box with a through shaft and spacers to fit the hub and cut the old rubber off > I will try to get the picture of that too

[SDeMocko]

Stew,

Any chance of seeing pictures of the mild too?

Stephen

[RichardT10829]

I heated up the casting with some charcoal brickettes... It softens the rubber on the wheel, then I just popped the rubber off and wire brushed the grooves, job done.

[lssah2025]

Current Advert on E*** Australia located in NSW.

200 AUD

A set of 4 british/canadian pattern wheels from a universal carrier/bren gun carrier. These wheels are narrower than the australian pattern wheels, having a tread width of approximately 2 inches.

The rubber tyres on 2 of the wheels has perished over time, however the remaining 2 appear not to have suffered as badly with the Firestone logo clearly visible and "made in canada" raised profile easily located. There is some gouging to the edges of these tyres - see attached pics for details. The wheels are stamped with 1941 and various makers marks. One wheel appears to be in a different style/finish to the others, possibly cast as opposed to a pressed or stamped manufacture.

All wheels still have the original bearings still in situ and rotate freely. Original hub caps/seals/spacers also included. Perfect if you're restoring a british/canadian pattern universal carrier.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Universal...item25989a5781

[Snowy]

Regarding the use of do-it-yourself two-part polyurethane. A few years ago a friend and I did some experiments with 90-duro hardness PU to cast experimental sections of Weasel track bands. Wanting to see how the embedded cable looked in the results, I omitted the black pigment. The casting went ok but it is very easy to get tiny bubbles. If you could arrange to build or borrow a vacuum chamber then these could be greatly reduced or eliminated. The PU is easy to work with but it does have a shortcoming alluded to above, that is, chunking. It also has a tendency for splits to run along the cracks.

However the most interesting effect was when I left a test piece outside and it got soaked in the rain. The PU which had hitherto been a clear honey colour turned an opaque pale milky shade, obviously it did seem to absorb moisture, but unknown as to how much. Later on after it dried out in the sun it returned to its original state, but that swayed me against using home-cast PU for Weasel bogies wheels or track bands. I suspect the factory-cast stuff is much more robust, such as a forklift wheel, and we have explored that avenue a tiny bit too.

As for Big Tyre, we visited them a few years back to discuss Weasel track bands in rubber with kevlar or cable and they were indeed very receptive - the CEO gave us a good deal of his valuable time. In the end the major problem was the sheer cost, well outside our expense limit so we didn't pursue it any further unfortunately. I did see the carrier wheel mould there at the time and a re-rubbered wheel made from it and it was truly excellent.

Steve.

[David Dunlop]

Just a thought, but there are companies around that specialize in putting new rubber on fork lift truck wheels. Smaller wheels but same process. Anyone ever checked with these companies to see if carrier wheels could be accommodated? Any local business running a fork lift should know who does that kind of work.

David