Best way to check for bent wheels?

Maintenance, Repair, Equipment & Tools
1

Is there a good method of checking to see if wheels are bent or not?

We went to GoPro last week and I basically bounced off everything imaginable trying to figure out how to go quickly at that place. Good news is I found the pace I was after, bad news is I bent 3 axles and a steering shaft (and sprocket carrier and sprockets, and…i’ll stop there) in the process and I can’t help but think I possibly bent a wheel or two in the process as well but you never hear about guys checking wheels vs axles and other components and I’m curious if there’s a good method of checking the wheels as well.

2

Andy, did you get the impression the kerbs at gopro on the inside were taller than usual?

3

Nah…they’re not that bad, I kept blasting the barriers that allowed very little room for error when pushing and seem to be located at different places every session. My own fault, kinda how I learn is to drive too hard and dial back vs. working up to the limit slowly.

4

I got the impression the inside kerbing was taller. You could place the driven wheel on the side of em and rotate kart sorta by sliding down them whilst accelerating. They felt tall to me.

5

From a usability standpoint you are correct, they are tall enough that you really can’t utilize them as productive real-estate…except the inside of T5 where you can kinda float over it on the approach to T6, but they weren’t hurting any parts or anything if you got into them.

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6

Trying to answer the original question - if the wheels were bent pretty sure your tyre wouldn’t seat properly and would therefore be devoid of air.

Wheels would normally just split if you hit them hard enough.

7

See if they balance out.

Usually if a wheel is bent enough that it isn’t usable, you can see it wobble when you spin the axle.

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8

Andy, I guess it depends on how scientific you want to get. I have a dial indicator tool that I have used to determine if things that spin have a small wobble (axles, rims, etc). A less scientific method is to lightly hold your hand above the tire as it is spinning on the stand. A little is normal, if you can see it go up and down something is bent. Same with the axle you can feel the oscillation if you lightly touch the spinning axle.