Bolt holes in rear rims elongated

[Lozeau4060]

The previous owner of the tractor I now own must have run the tractor with loose lug bolts and caused the holes to become elongated.Any ideas on how to fix the problem without buying a new rim?
I thought about filling the edges of the holes in with weld and re drilling them out.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

There is no safe way to fix it, the rear rims are under a ton of stress and any welding will crystallize the metal and make them brittle and prone to more cracks.
Having a rear rim fail can be dangerous or fatal, don't mess around with it.

Buy new rims!

If you must run it for a while before getting new rims, put washers on the lug nuts, but only use that as a very short term solution.

 

[Lozeau4060]

Can you buy just the inner hub or do you have to get the whole wheel?

 

[BAP]

If they are the 2 piece rims, you can get the center piece separate. Also, there are aftermarket suppliers that you can buy from. No tractor manufacturers make their own rims, they source them out.

 

[fruitcakesa]

One of the rims on my L4630 started developing cracks radiating out from the bolt holes.
When I replaced it with new, pieces of the old rim fell out

 

[Yooper]

Welding on steel that has been stamped rarely works because the stresses that are put into the metal from the stamping process can not be normalized unless the whole rim is heat treated (annealed) before and after welding. Even then there is no guarantee it will not crack. If a part can be welded I would surely do it but I am with Wolfman on this one. It is a time bomb just waiting to go off!

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Can you buy just the inner hub or do you have to get the whole wheel?

Inner disk P/N TC230-27660

 

[David Page]

I had the lip of the rim rust through on our old Oliver 38" tires. Tire started coming off in the woods on a side hill. Did like any part of it and I was just creeping. Somethings aren't worth fooling around with.