I had some wheel adapters made and I specifically made mention that the cut out outs for the valve stem guards are not centered between the bolt holes. I even supplied a cardboard template to show the orientation of the holes to the cut out. I picked them up and had a chance to work on them yesterday and discovered they put the bolt holes centered with the cut outs. They will work but look very amateurish with about a 1/4" gap on one side and about 1 1/2" gap on the other side. I went to talk to the guy at the machine shop who was always real nice and of course his attitude changed. He had an oh well, they will work kind of attitude. Odd thing is I phoned to see how they were progressing on them last week and he said they were working on them right then but would have to go through quality control and should be ready the next day. Now I'm questioning their quality control and guessing who ever set them up for drilling either wasn't told they were offset or never referred to the template. I paid $129.00 each to get them drilled and tapped (they provided the quote) and think they should have taken some responsibility for their mistake. Offering a 10% discount even would have went a long ways. At least the tapped holes line up. Here's some pics. of the adapter and the template. It's a little hard to tell they're offset but I specifically pointed it out and even modified the template so there would be an even gap around the valve stem guards. If you look close you can see that the center of the cutout is not in the middle between the inside holes. It is only offset about 1/2" from center but makes a big difference once expanded out to the cut out. Curious how others would react if they had something made that wasn't made to their template. Would you be happy with this? The pockets for the centering pins were inconsistent and needed a lot of work with a die grinder but that's pretty minor in comparison. In hindsight I should have holes drilled for the line up pins (hub centering). A different shop cut the adapters on a CNC plasma table and I thought the pockets would be more accurate and only need light touch up. The adapters weigh about 50lbs. a piece. We fiddled around forever trying to figure out how to download the pics. and don't know how to remove the other crap that also shows up on the right. There must be an easier way to download pics. from a phone. https://imgur.com/7tC1GQw https://imgur.com/AKeHwDq
They should've apologized and took some $ off the bill. You went above and beyond to get what you wanted, they dropped the ball. Ed
It be one thing if it was a freebee but as a paying job with a layout they should get it right or make it right.
Thanks for the responses. Nice to know I'm not being nit picky wanting something to be done how I wanted it. I thought he might at least look into it and see what happened or who messed up. I probably should have just asked him what happened and waited for his response. I wonder if he forgot to mention the offset? I could see other customers demanding the plates be redone or the holes welded up and new holes drilled and tapped. It's one of those things that will bug me every time I look at the wheels. I did just about everything I could to make sure they were right. That's why I even made the cut out bigger on the template. I had the offset off too and wanted a more even gap. Good thing (or maybe bad thing) I didn't decide to make the cut out only have a 1/4" gap all the way around or I would have had to take a torch and cut it bigger. That's not really an option now because it would make the cut out look stupidly big like I didn't know how to measure. Actually I could have made it look better if the cut out wasn't big enough. I'm pretty good with a torch especially if I have a guide for the torch. I wonder if it's worth staying on his case and texting him that I'm disappointed he didn't even admit a mistake was made? I think he could at least acknowledge a mistake was made on their end. Like I said even offering a 10% discount would go a long way. I think of it like a practical test on an exam... you're given all the dimensions and a cardboard template to replicate in steel. The way the plates were done with a glaring mistake I'm not sure would get a passing grade.
Any decent machine shop either has a guy in house or an outside guy they can take oops parts to to be welded up and re-machined. Occasionally I TIG up things for shops so they can save from scrapping a whole part.
What a shame after you provided all the detailed information they needed to do it right. Here are your pictures without "all the crap on the right" There are a couple of easy ways to do just the image. I simply saved the image to my pc (laptop). Then posted it here. The quickest way for me to get (download) a picture from my phone to another phone, or one of my pc's is to email it to myself.
Can you put the adapter on the other side of the rim? Just a thought. I would have thought they’d want to make it right.
Is it going to be hard to access the valve stem with everything on the machine?
It's easier to distinguish the offset on the template with Tinkerer's post of the pics. I wanted to finish the adapters and get the wheels mounted so I could see how they worked before I mentioned the main reason I made the adapters but now I'm all in I can disclose that the tires are foam filled. I won't need to access the valve stems. Crane Operator mentioned telehandlers having foam filled tires awhile ago and sure enough when I took a valve cap off there was a silicone type substance around the valve stem. I could have went back to RB's and complained they never listed the tires as foam filled but don't know if they would have done anything about it. Tires were stacked so couldn't easily be checked if they were air filled or not. I even called the seller and they thought the wheels were off a Cat grader. Maybe everybody was just playing dumb? Seeing as other machines like wheel loaders can run foam filled tires, I don't see why they couldn't work on a grader. They may not be as good as air filled but I think should still work fine for my uses. I'm not going to be plowing snow at 20MPH. The tires are brand new Goodyear radials that apparently have something in the rubber to limit UV damage from being in the sun. The tires are listed for around $1600/ea. US and I got them for $687.50/ea. Cad. complete with brand new rims. I think it was worth a gamble to make adapters to fit them on the grader. If they don't work very well, I could try and resell them or put them back in the auction. Another bidder paid the same as I did for an identical set. They tried to outbid me with 7 minutes left in the timed auction but I figured they would try that seeing how they were bidding. I think I know who the other bidder was (used equipment dealer) and has them listed for $4999.00 Cad. on Kijiji. The good thing is the adapters can be taken off and the original style rims put back on if required. If the grader had a different wheel mounting I don't know if adapters could have been made. Not sure when I'll get them mounted but will give a review on how they work.
WD .. I have a mower with foam filled tires... Besides being heavy and rough riding... they're great. The original tire has long been worn/ torn off and only the foam is left I do have another set of wheels to put on, purchased three years ago . But since the foam was working then, I thought to get every bit of work out of them. 3 years later they're still working. Your tires likely cost what you paid just to have them foam filled. I think you got a great deal.
Thanks! I think the wheels with foam filled tires would be in the $10,000 range Cad. One advantage is they will all have the same pressure and I won't have to worry about any slow leaks.
Let us know how they ride and how well they work for a grader application compared to regular air-filled
I will, just don't know when I'll get them installed. I go for my stem cell transplant on Monday. Hoping the weather won't be too bad when I get out and I'm not too drained physically. I need to see how hard the studs are to get out. Still bugs me the machine screwed up and didn't even acknowledge it was their mistake.