I guess I have a question about magnesium wheels when I see hot roders and racers like those in the SEGA running fifty sixty year old magnesium wheels when restores like Jay Lenno and others will not use them on a street driven car. Now I understand that magnesium cracks and oxidizes but where’s the line where you shouldn’t use them? Does it become more brittle with time, I know that oxidation causes the magnesium to actually lose demention what is the failure point. At some point in this video Lenno talks about the wheels on this particular car, it’s actually a very interesting car.
Everything old gets brittle. I just guess the wimps don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze. I’m not scared of magnesium.
The steel wheels on my ‘40 Plymouth looked decent from the outside but when I removed the tires and blasted them, so pitted that I blew a hole in one… Can happen with any material.
If there is concern about brittleness, there are ways to heat treat or temper them to bring back the ductility. So I have read. I have not spoken to companies that do this but that would be a good step if you plan to use them. Hope that helps.
There are entire fields of employment and research in the " how long is it safe" for almost everything man-made. From pharmaceuticals to septic tanks. There is almost never a single sentence or short paragraph answer to any of it, especially when factoring in what the object has been subject to over it's life. Then what the usage will be, and what the safety margin or risk is desired. What was once accepted as okay can now be seen as iffy or dangerous. The 80 year old guy that still pours waste oil out back and doesn't use PPE will have a different opinion than the insurance adjuster who is looking for any excuse to deny a claim.
For every question there's an answer, sometimes it's one we don't want to hear, sometime it's one we choose to ignore. Yup, a very unique car indeed. I'm sure if I had that mans money I wouldn't run them either. Just like the upgrade to the 5 speed, it's a choice made based on some deciding factors. Being worth deep buckets of cash and living to spend it...that's a pretty good reason to avoid the risk if you ask me. Running them because you're a hoodlum hotrodder and they look good with loud mufflers rumbling good vibrations...worth the risk maybe?
I could buy a nice, used car for what I have into my wheels. So, when the car is done, I'll run them... just like lots of other guys do (without issue). Though, I wouldn't run any rotted wheel whether it were a steelie, spoked wheel or mag. A magnesium wheel that had been in a box or on a shelf for 30-50 years is fair game.
You can have them checked for cracks, there are several techniques. You can also have them hardness tested, though you would need to find out the acceptable range or the specific hardness they were when new.
Dow Metal does crack and get brittle. There is no reason to use it on any wheel for a street car. They are useful if you are trying to save ounces on a race car. I crewed on the first GT350 R model at the vintage races. We were prepping the car for an event. I aired the tires up. When I sprayed cleaner on the wheels I noticed bubbles around where the spokes met the rim - American Torque Thrust D wheels. I found cracks on 3 of the wheels one had only 1 spoke that wasn't cracked. We called the owner in NJ and he sent us the other 5 wheels he'd collected. 2 of those were also cracked. I'm going to buy some aluminum wheels and have them powder coated the same golden hue of the Dow7 coating they used on the Halibrands. Dowmetal is a brand name for a series of lightweight magnesium-based alloys, containing over 85% magnesium, manufactured by The Dow Chemical Company. Renowned for being one-third lighter than other structural metals, it was extensively used in the early-to-mid 20th century for aviation, automotive parts, tools, and consumer products
May I suggest…try the Vanish trick. Vanish comes in a pink container, and is a laundry oxidizer/stain remover. Bennet Customs has a great video on YouTube. Basically it turns aluminum a dark charcoal color. Completely magnesium looking… W/O the real magnesium cost and concerns. You might have to fog on some gold paint to make the wheels look like new Dow 7 wheels as the Vanish dye job will look like old magnesium. All you need is Vanish and HOT water!
At my buddy @gary terhaar 's 50th birthday party I made him a neat little birthday cake. I used a chunk of br*** as the cake and pieces of magnesium welding rods to make the candles. He saw it and got spooked, having had a recent incident in the shop. Seems a few weeks before the party, he and a helper were grinding steel and a spark landed into a cup of magnesium s**** chips, which fell over and went behind the lathe. Luckily the two of them were able to slide the lathe away from the wall and contain the whole thing. We lit the candles out in the parking lot lol.
It's the other stuff that's not so pretty! You haven't lived until you've set the whole chip bin of your lathe on fire, a very bright white fire. One day at work late 1980's I got a rush job interruption while running regular production parts, the bin was full of steel and aluminum chips and ribbons, cutting oils etc. I had never machined magnesium before, got an order to modify thirty large Magnaloy coupling hubs, needed to remove a full inch of material off each hub face, most of the s**** was thin magnesium ribbons (first mistake), second mistake was not keeping fresh carbide inserts in play, third mistake was allowing the tool entry to dwell at start of cut. Let me tell you, it was like lighting a fast burning fuse, no time to react, huge fire in the chip bin, oh yeah, and DO NOT throw water on a magnesium fire (fourth mistake). Not sure who was dummer, me or managements lack of preparedness when doing this. Luckily a guy from our electronics department came running with a ?Halon? fire extinguisher and got the fire out but man talk about two guys with a dire need to change their underware! Our engineering department was above the machine shop and it emptied that area pretty quickly, the fumes also made quite a rusty mess of the bare steel jigs and fixtures on the shelves next to my lathe. I was not real popular for awhile.
Everything, old and new, has it's risks. Are new aluminum wheels cast in China or India safer than 60 year old magnesium? Maybe. Maybe not.
@Adriatic Machine @DDDenny Year ago can relate to Magnesium dust and chips Sanding & machining.. It was like a big Sparkler fire.. @Corn Fed , I Like to know Have a honest clear answer about magnesium and age, I have several parts that are 50 plus old , Wheels , blower's & other
All us guys who love magnesium wheels can buy them for pennies now that they’ve been deemed unsafe. Send me PM’s and I’ll arrange to pick them up.
@alchemy some of us are smart enough to know that you plan on collecting them up and cremating a deceased friend out at Joshua Tree. (obscure reference for ya).
I saw another process on youtube that produced a little lighter look. I may try that on some old wheels to see what I like. To add to the magnesium fire slant. The fire department came by for an inspection of our machine shop and "informed" my dad about the fire hazards of the aluminum chips in the s**** barrel. All while he was leaning on a bench that the top was a 3/4" thick slab of magnesium. We had 10 benches made from 40" square pieces that had been punch press die plates. My grandfather had a lot of experience with magnesium. He oversaw the building of the balloon gondola that first saw the curvature of the earth in 1933. My dad was 15 and remembered going to see it while they were putting it together.
I am not a metallurgist so I can't comment on what happens to 60 year old magnesium. My personal experience is running 2 different cars with magnesium wheels on them with no issues. My '32 doesn't even have tubes in the tires. My comment about China or India castings comes from where I work. My employer manufactures items often used in high pressure or critical chemical processing. Some of our customers specify no China or no India castings. Even though every casting we use is pressure tested and we fully warrant our products, they still insist, and pay a premium, for not having those castings. My point is don't go thinking that just because you are buying new aluminum wheels that sorta look like Halibrands they are safer than old magnesium ones. You have no clue on the manufacturing that went into making them.
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