DIY wheel weights - disc brakes !

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

I had some left over brake parts from my VW and thought I could put them to use as wheel weights.

 

A lot of recycling / re-using going on here!  The buckets used to be recycling buckets from before the days of 'single stream' automated collection.

 

BY THE WAY... for anyone thinking of doing this...  You MUST leave some clearance between the bucket and the wheel.  I used a strip of corrugated cardboard between the bucket and the wheel while I was fabricating.  This gave me about 1/8" clearance.  You don't want these so tight that they have to be forced in and out of the wheel.  ALSO... I noticed that the buckets 'ovaled' a little bit after pouring the concrete.  It's probably a good idea to add the 'fillings' while the bucket is still in the wheel WITH the cardboard spacer.  ESPECIALLY if you are using the thinner 5 gallon pails as your casings.  The buckets I used are quite a bit heavier duty than drywall compound or paint buckets so it didn't deform enough to cause a fitting problem.

 

 

Started by cutting down some old plastic buckets.  Added a bunch of pop rivets to hold on to the concrete later.  There were also pop rivets in the bottom but didn't get a pic of that.

 

 

 

Cut some 1/2" copper pipe for the bolts to pass through.  Yeah, I know... could have gotten by with just two.  Ran a bead of hot glue around the bottom (not shown in pic) to hold them in place until filled with 'crete.

 

 

 

Bent up the handle from the bucket to embed in the 'crete.  Make sure they're high enough to leave some knuckle room. 

 

 

 

Had to notch out the discs and drums I embedded in the 'crete in order to clear the bolt tubes.

 

 

Easiest way I found to do this was to use cutoff wheel to make radial cuts and score the 'horizontal' part and whack it with a hammer to break out the notch.

 

Drum went in on top of a bed of concrete.  Hadn't poured the 'crete in this pic, still test fitting...

 

 

 

Disc gets embedded on top with surface flush with top edge.  Here it is shown for test fit purposes.

 

 

 

And finally, the 'almost' finished product.  Still need to cut the copper tubes flush with the top surface.  Use a flat washer under the bolt in order to put the pressure on the brake disc rather than the end of the copper tube.

 

 

I also added some more metal scrap inside between the drum and the disc since steel/iron weighs a bit more than concrete.  They came in at 40 lb each.  Adequate for my needs.

 

The only money I spent was for the bag of concrete.  Everything else was 'in stock', recycled / re-used.   Not bad, 40 lb wheel weights for under 10 bucks!

 

If I did this again, the only thing I would do differently is to make them 8" tall rather than 6".  I could have gotten to at least 50 lb and added more scrap iron inside.  But I'm happy with how they turned out.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Jeff-C175

[peter lena 8,589]

@Jeff-C175  interesting idea, local  bone/ scrap yard near me always has piles of brake rotors  near the front of yard. .might have to do some snoopin  and planning , pete

[davem1111 2,030]

Can't wait to see them on a tractor.   You gonna paint them?

[Pullstart 62,812]

Nice work!  

[OutdoorEnvy 1,522]

Nicely done Jeff!  I may borrow your idea and go with your 8" height suggestion!  Thanks for the post! 

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

53 minutes ago, davem1111 said:

You gonna paint them?

 

Making paint stick to HDPE in any sort of permanent fashion is nearly impossible.  Soooo, I think I'm not even going to try.  Unless I have some "head cheese" cans of paint leftover... maybe I'll give it a shot.

 

I have read that you can 'flame treat' HDPE and make paint stick... I might try that on a test piece.

 

 

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

57 minutes ago, davem1111 said:

Can't wait to see them on a tractor

 

I'll test fit them in a week or two when the concrete is more dry.

 

 

[roadapples 6,983]

Could try to find some red buckets instead of yellow ...

   Nice job...

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

1 minute ago, roadapples said:

Could try to find some red buckets instead of yellow ...

   Nice job...

I only had a choice of blue which was in real bad shape, green... Uhhh, no, thank you, or yellow.  So I went the least offensive route possible!

 

I am going to look into a way to paint them but I don't have high hopes! 

[Snoopy11 5,714]

Lookin' better than mine, Jeff...

 

 

 

 

Don

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

2 hours ago, Snoopy11 said:

Lookin' better than mine

 

I wanted to thank you for inspiring me to finally do something I've been thinking about for a long time, and showing me how not to do it! 

[ebinmaine 67,328]

Nice work Sir.  

 

 

3 hours ago, roadapples said:

Could try to find some red buckets instead of yellow

I tried to tell 'im!!

 

😂

[sjoemie himself 3,068]

@Jeff-C175 if you don't mind me asking, why leave the buckets on? I'm assuming for better structural integrity but there may be other reasons..

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

6 hours ago, sjoemie himself said:

@Jeff-C175 if you don't mind me asking, why leave the buckets on? I'm assuming for better structural integrity but there may be other reasons..

 

Of course I don't mind!

 

I think the first was to minimize damage to the wheels when installing / removing the weights.  The smooth plastic surface is far less likely to scrape up the paint.

 

Handling them is maybe somewhat easier due to not having to handle coarse concrete.

 

And yes, structural integrity does play into it quite a bit.  Since there isn't a whole bunch of room between the edges of the brake drum and the edge of the bucket, there wouldn't be a lot of material holding the concrete together at that point.  I would be possible that the concrete could break at those points.  

 

 

[sjoemie himself 3,068]

Yep, makes perfect sense! Thanks for explaining.

 

My thought regarding the paint was rubberized paint or bedliner or something in that direction. That's why I thought lose the bucket and stick it together with bedliner or similar.

But even bedliner won't hold the brakediscs in the concrete I think.

 

Another thought that came to mind, use a metal (paint-) bucket? 

 

All this being said, I don't want to undermine your idea ofcourse.

 

Greetings from the Netherlands, Mark 

[Snoopy11 5,714]

7 minutes ago, sjoemie himself said:

Another thought that came to mind, use a metal (paint-) bucket?

As a student of this thread... hoping to eventually make my own weights in the near future... metal sounds like a very good idea... one that I am going to ponder...

 

Don

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

21 minutes ago, sjoemie himself said:

Yep, makes perfect sense! Thanks for explaining.

 

My thought regarding the paint was rubberized paint or bedliner or something in that direction. That's why I thought lose the bucket and stick it together with bedliner or similar.

But even bedliner won't hold the brake discs in the concrete I think.

 

Another thought that came to mind, use a metal (paint-) bucket? 

 

All this being said, I don't want to undermine your idea of course.

 

Greetings from the Netherlands, Mark 

 

Hi Mark,

 

Not so worried about the disc coming loose from the top since the concrete fills the center and there's a big hole which should bond it well.  The drum in the bottom though, there's likely not enough to hold that.

 

I did consider metal as well... but one of my goals was to not have to purchase anything except the concrete and that goal was met.  That said, I did hit the home goods stores looking for something to use that would fit without modification and everything I looked at was either too big or too small... and I considered every round object in the stores!  

 

Now that you mention it though... a rubberized bed liner might just stick to the HDPE plastic.  I've yet to try any tests, but one thing I am going to try is the 'flame treatment' on the material and hit it with some paint to see what happens.  I dearly would love to get rid of the yellow!

 

 

[sjoemie himself 3,068]

Kind of a sport to keep cost low on things like this. I like and practice the same method 

 

Never heard of 'flame treatment' but curious to see how that works.

HDPE is a tricky substance to paint for sure. The only advantage that you have is that the material is fixed in place. Not so much to worry about in terms of the HDPE wanting to flex.