Welding A Cast Wheel Center

On my Unstyled John Deere A the cast center there the collar slides and clamps broke. The bubble gum welds from long ago finally gave way.

Any suggestions on where to take this thing to get it welded or (hopefully not) find a matching replacement cut-off? I'm in central to North central Indiana.





Thank You

I had the same thing happen to my factory flat spoke wheels. I didnt want the hubs welded for fear of breaking again. I found a machine shop that milled and drilled the center out to accept removable hubs. I found a pair a twelve spline hubs five years ago for $200 and the machine work ran abouut $300-$400 and was very pleased with the results, cant tell the difference.

What if you had a new splined collar made to fit inside of the casting with it machined for the collar then tighten them up like a taper locking hub in a pulley.

You're better off to find a different wheel since it is a cutoff. I broke 2 ears off a wheel and it cost about $475 at the local welding shop to get it repaired with nickel rod. Mine was a round spoke wheel in excellent condition, so it would have cost more to replace it. The problem is, it is very time consuming to repair the hub properly, so labor will get very expensive.

If you have a grinder and a welder you might be able to fix it.You have to grind all of the old weld off.What I think I would do is this,grind the wheel down to some clean metal,cover it with weld like 7018 probably 2 passes.Grind the other pieces down to where you have a gap that you can fill with weld between the pieces once the pieces are fitted together.Clamp or make something to go around those pieces and hold them in place.Get it square,tack it good.Have it so you can turn it and get it tacked square all around.Then build up the weld.Since you would be welding weld to weld on the wheel it should hold better maybe.Just a suggestion,could be wrong.Also you would want to preheat that big weld some.Stay at it until its done.Looks like it will take a couple of days and lots of welding rod.If it broke before,it can sure break again,maybe before you get it welded.Might be time to look hard for some different wheels.

I think for a start I'd check with some salvage yards. Dunno any in your area... but that's where I'd start.
If that failed I'd think about the machining method suggested below.

If you can't find someone game to try that for you, then I'd consider welding it, bu that will not be an easy piece to weld.
Prep won't be exactly easy. It needs to be beveled to the bottom, then welded from the outside. That's not the greatest way to weld cast, but your choices are slim here... but it needs to be deep beveled so you can get a FULL weld penetration, then crown it up good on the outside.
That part is doable... the bigger problem I see is getting that much mass of cast up to temperature.
You might need to build a fairly large fire with charcoal and let it heat up. Get it over 400 F, weld it... try to keep it warm with a rosebud while you're welding it... then I'd probably put it back in the fire and let it cool as the fire goes out. Let it cool slowly, on it's own.
Should work...

I'm partial to using a Sodel 35 or 335 NiRod for that.

Rod

To even attempt to repair something like that is not for an amateur. You would need to find someone highly specialized in cast iron repair and it wouldn't be cheap. A replacement would be your best bet. Being that it broke on the splines, the broken pieces are pretty much useless now. Maybe??? you could talk to a machine shop and see if they could machine a bigger hole in the wheel to accept a new splined section that would need to be made. George MD could probably give you some good advice as he works a lot with cast. I have read that heating cast red hot and using a spray welding technique has been used to successfully repair large machinery castings. Basically powdered iron is sprayed and fuses to the hot cast iron as if it were cast that way. Spray welding is commonly used to build up worn shafts. A specialty welding company like Eutectic-Castolin may be a good starting point. Although 7018 can be used for non critical cast repair and specialty rods can repair cast, on something critical like a wheel, you want to do it right. If it was just a cover plate or something like that, then you could look at simpler repairs. Hope this helps. Dave