crack in wheel tw35 ford

I found a crack in the rear wheel center section. It goes from the bolt hole that draws the wedges in to the center, then on the other side of the same hole about 3/4 inch out. My question is, can this be welded? I did the grinder test to see if it was cast iron or cast steel. It threw a lot of sparks.

You're talking about a very thick piece of metal here. The weld will only penetrate as deep as you groove out the crack. You won't be able to preheat adequately so there's the risk of it just cracking again as it cools.

If you hire it done it will probably be cheaper to get a good used wheel hub somewhere.

Hi I think that is serious! When I was about 10 or so,
a neighbor kid about 18 yrs old was leveling some gravel on the side of the road with a Case tractor with cast wheels. Anyway the casting broke on the ditch side and the tractor rolled over sideways into the ditch pinning Dave under water. He drowned. I will never forget. Ed Will Oliver BC

It would be much better and safer finding good wheel at a salvage yard.

I doubt it would be cast iron.
It would be cast steel.
I would not hesitate to weld it.
Vee it out from both sides so you get nearly full penetration and fill it with 7018.
I would probably heat that area to maybe 500 degrees before I struck an arc but would do no other pre/post heating to it. If you are not an above average welder I would have it done.
If you are a good welder it will be a simple, reliable repair.

There are enough TW ford scraped to be able to find a good used casting. I would NOT try to weld that heavy of a casting that cracked.

Thanks for the replys. I've never welded cast steel before but it would be interesting to try. I have found another wheel but I still haven't decided what to do yet. Seems to me that ford didn't build this tractor very tough like they advertise.

I worked for a steel foundry, actually one of only a handful of steel sand foundries left in the US. I suspect the wheel is ductile iron, not cast steel. Old times called ductile iron "Semi-steel". There's lots lots more ductile iron foundries in the US than there are steel foundries.

We had a solid cast alloy disk about 8 feet in diameter and 7-8 inches thick with a 15 inch diameter hole in the center. The carbon in the steel concentrates under the riser contacts on the cope side (top side when poured) and cracked when the part was annealed for machining. We bought a large round livestock water tank to cover the disk and set a big LP space heater under the center of the casting and pre-heated it for 5-6 hours. We arc-aired the crack, managed to chase it ALL THE WAY THRU THE CASTING! We tried welding it some and just chased the crack farther ahead of the welding. We sent it back to our parent company, the foundry, and ordered another casting for rush delivery. Two years later that danged scrap casting was still sitting around the foundry.

So if the cost of that used wheel is less than what the tractor is worth, BUY IT! You can use the old cracked wheel for weight/ballast on something.