Finally got my new rims, but had a minor problem

sxmax · July 13, 2004

I went with a new rim from ION Alloy. It is the style 165 and I got it in Chrome. I had to have them dropped shipped from the factory as most stores do not carry this model yet. I received them Friday and went to put them on last night. All was going great. They mounted great and balanced even better, until I got to part of installing the center caps. They are held on by 2 screws instead of pushing through from the back side. In the manufacturing process, they decided not to do a very good job of tapping and drilling the holes for these screws. Most were only tapped part ways so I just shortened the screw to get them to work, except for the last one, it had only about 2 threads cut, so I figure no problem I will just tap the hole the rest of the way. Needless to say we broke the tap off and now have a rim with a broken tap and no center cap. Everyone I talked to said we are pretty much screwed as taps are pretty much impossible to remove. I hoping that either ION or place that I purchased them from will somehow help me out with either a new rim or a remedy to fix it. Can I just rotate the cap and drill and tap new holes without hurting the integrity of the rim? The screws are very small just 4MM by about 1/4 of an inch. I will get pictures posted of the good side when I get the rest of my rig cleaned up. Sorry for the long post. I just had to vent. Any advice on my situation is appreciated.

Thanks!

Shaners · July 13, 2004

I spent about 5 years working in the tool room at GE. We had a multiple finger tap remover that i used many times with great success. You have to have plenty of patients, and some good lube.

When tapping a hole by hand it is very important to tap it slow. I usually like to turn the tap in 1/2 turn then back it out 1/4 turn to break and clear the chips. Keep on going like this and it should tap out fine...

If you get the tap out, make sure you get all the pieces of it back out, or you will most likely run into a similar problem.

sxmax · July 14, 2004

Shaners....

Thanks for the advice, but no one around had access to a tool of that nature. So we went ahead a rotated the cap and drilled and tapped new holes and it worked great. The only way one would ever know is if you take the cap off that wheel. I also found out this morning that ION is going to warranty the wheel. My hats off to ION Alloys and Tom's Wheelz in Beselton, Texas.

I still have not given it a bath so that I can snap some good pics and post but I hope to by the end of the week!