tires melting rims

[DougS]

Just bought several built Protar motorcycles and the tires on all of them seem to be softening the rims and destroying the chrome. I've removed all of the tires so they wouldn't get worse. Now I need some advise on what to coat the tires or the rims with to prevent this.

[Straightliner59]

50 minutes ago, DougS said:

Just bought several built Protar motorcycles and the tires on all of them seem to be softening the rims and destroying the chrome. I've removed all of the tires so they wouldn't get worse. Now I need some advise on what to coat the tires or the rims with to prevent this.

I'm not sure if anything can be done with what you have, now--My guess is that the reaction will likely continue. If it does stop reacting, some Bare-Metal foil around the perimeter of the rim should keep it from starting, again. I have tried to get in the habit of just doing that, but, I often forget. In my experience, MPC's tires were the worst offenders.

[bobss396]

I had some resin stock car wheels react with AMT kit wide ovals, turned the tires to mush. This was (another!) stalled project put back in the box.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Past a certain point, the plastic becomes permanently softened, and there's really nothing you can do but fabricate new rims or replace them.

For everything previously posted here on the subject, search google:

 tire melt site:www.modelcarsmag.com

Edited June 13, 2024 by Ace-Garageguy

[peteski]

Yes, as Bill pointed out, this subject has came up in the past.

[oldcarfan]

The type of soft plastic used in a lot of tires does tend to react with the styrene of wheels. Frustratingly, it doesn't seem to do it consistently. I recently found a couple of old builds from the 90s. One was the snap Revell Acura NSX and the other was their Viper kit. Both were built around the same time in the same way and it looks like they used the same tires as the Lamborghini Diablo kit I also built at that time. Only the NSX' tires seem to have attacked the wheels.

[Bill Eh?]

As Ace-Garageguy has already pointed out, there is a pinned thread "HOW DO I SEARCH FOR ANSWERS ALREADY POSTED HERE ?"