Broken center cap for alloy wheel

[Iced-T]

Hi, 

The center cap clips for my rims are broken and are not holding on to the rims. 
 Will it affect the wheel balancing if a tiny hole is drilled (screw tapped) into the alloy so that the center cap can be screwed in. 

Any help is much appreciated.

Iced-T

[tiv]

1 hour ago, Iced-T said:

Hi, 

The center cap clips for my rims are broken and are not holding on to the rims. 
 Will it affect the wheel balancing if a tiny hole is drilled (screw tapped) into the alloy so that the center cap can be screwed in. 

Any help is much appreciated.

Iced-T

If its not a rare wheel, center caps can be bought cheap in some alloy wheel joints or online, which is far easier

If they are Chinese / Taiwan rims there is a tendency to crack or start to peel off the chrome or lacquer finish once you drill it

Yes it will have a near negligible effect on the on the balancing.

[Twin Turbo]

Keep the addition to a minimum, ie, aluminium rivet.

[Iced-T]

1 hour ago, tiv said:

If its not a rare wheel, center caps can be bought cheap in some alloy wheel joints or online, which is far easier

If they are Chinese / Taiwan rims there is a tendency to crack or start to peel off the chrome or lacquer finish once you drill it

Yes it will have a near negligible effect on the on the balancing.

Thank you for the reply. I looked around darley road and panchikawatta for another center cap but was unable to find the right size/ pattern etc.

Does this kind of screw/tapping work on alloys require a lot of precision?  it seems that i might need to tap 2 screws into the rim. Are there any places that will do this for me properly or can give me some advice after looking at the rim. 

[Davy]

If it's a plastic centre cap, why not fabricate a couple of metal clips and rivet to the centre cap itself? This way you don't need to drill the rim. If you do it properly, you can even sink the rivet into the plastic of the centre cap and then put some filler on top of it and paint the centre cap so that the rivet is hidden. The metal clips be easy to make out of thin sheet metal and bent to catch the back of the rim like the plastic clips do.

I'd just steer clear of drilling the rim. It's probably not going to cause any balancing issues because you're drilling close to the axle, so the radius is too low for the rivet or screw to cause a lot of linear force. However, the integrity of the rim might be compromised the moment you drill it.

[Iced-T]

6 minutes ago, Davy said:

If it's a plastic centre cap, why not fabricate a couple of metal clips and rivet to the centre cap itself? This way you don't need to drill the rim. If you do it properly, you can even sink the rivet into the plastic of the centre cap and then put some filler on top of it and paint the centre cap so that the rivet is hidden. The metal clips be easy to make out of thin sheet metal and bent to catch the back of the rim like the plastic clips do.

I'd just steer clear of drilling the rim. It's probably not going to cause any balancing issues because you're drilling close to the axle, so the radius is too low for the rivet or screw to cause a lot of linear force. However, the integrity of the rim might be compromised the moment you drill it.

Thank you Davy,  

The center caps are plastic. 

I am also worried about the integrity of the rim and I am not a big fan of modifying anything that comes stock.  
I will ask a few places to see if the clips can be fabricated. 

Thanks again.

 

 

[tiv]

A pic of the cap and the rim may help