Cragar Chrome Peeling

I just noticed the chrome cracking around the lug nut of my one of my old Cragar wheels. It has not come off yet but if I touch it it will. Any solutions to prevent (clear coat?) or what to do after...?

Thanks,Larry

 

Nothing you can do about it. Mine did the same thing a while back ( 20 yrs) I just sandblasted them and painted them white to match the car....

 

It's "patina", people pay good money for that!

Brian

 

I have the same issue with some 15" x 3-1/2 cragar swap meet gems.

What exactly are these, and perhaps other, custom wheels from the 60's and 70's made from?

The center section has to be a permanent mold casting that is ferrous enough to be welded to what is probably a rolled mild steel rim hoop.

I'm just guessing here and could be completely utterly wrong. Straighten me out, pleez!

-90% Jimmy

 

Typical, nothing..short of replacing/replating.

 

Wouldn't be real Cragars if they didn't peel!

 

Very true .The 3 1/2 x 15's on the front of my drag car are peeling as well (especially the centers ) ,but hey so is the rest of the car .I think it looks kinda cool .Please note how well they go with the gravel road worn off, factory painted ,surface rusted lower front fenders ,lol ...

 

a cragar wheel has a aluminum center, over time aluminum will oxidize, and the chrome will peel off, thats my opinion

 

I should have turned around......waxing them with floor polish keeps them from rusting. I had a set on a Chevelle in Buffalo and they never rusted.....I blasted a rusty peeling set for a friend in Omaha and painted them silver...looked great

 

The center is cast aluminum with steel inserts cast in for welding to the rim.

Chrome and aluminum don't play well together on parts subject to cyclic loading. As a wheel rotates, the direction of the load is continuously changing and every part of the wheel is deflecting due to the load. The first layer of plating, typically copper, doesn't bond to aluminum like it'll bond to steel, so you have a coating of copper, nickel, and chrome that's sitting on the surface of the aluminum more like a skin than like an integral part of the aluminum.

There was a good article in one of the motorcycle rags several years ago where an engineer from one of the big bike wheel makers, maybe Performance Machine, explained the problems with getting chrome to stay on cyclically loaded aluminum parts. In a nutshell, he said the only way to guarantee the chrome will never fail on an aluminum wheel is to hang it on a wall so it never sees a load.

Back in the late 60's and early 70's when everybody and his brother had a set of Cragars, it wasn't unusual to see the chrome begin to fail when the wheels were only a couple years old. One thing that always seemed to stand out was the durability of the chrome on Keystone wheels as compared to Cragars. Keystones were also steel rims with aluminum centers welded in, but their plating seemed to consistently hold up better.

There were also some wheels made back at that time where the aluminum center had dimples cast into the OD. These were placed into the steel rim and a press dimpled the steel into the corresponding dimples in the aluminum. Probably worse junk than anything imported from the far east today. After a year or two of use, it wasn't unusual to see the center loose enough that you could move the center within the rim.

 

floor polish will help? I have American racer wheels doing the same thing.

 

I laughed at the guy in the Cragar booth at the street rid nationals at their new product. Cragar 5 spokes with the center painted silver like they use to do.
I tried to explain we did that
Cause the chrome kept coming off.
Needless to say he
Was not amused