Apparatus for making a full face wheel

Abstract

A full face fabricated sheet metal wheel having a rim with dual bead seats and inboard flange and a disc welded to the outboard edge of the rim and providing an outboard tire bead retaining flange with a curl rolled to finish profile without machining. Method and apparatus for making such wheel includes a roll forming machine with modified roll forming tooling and workpiece clamping mechanism so as to rotatably spring clamp and rotationally drivingly support a wheel workpiece in the machine roll forming station on axially opposed outboard and inboard power driven lower rolls during roll forming the flange curl profile. An upper outboard roll operates to first clamp a flange pre-cursor portion of the workpiece to securely stabilize and prevent tilting of the workpiece on the lower clamping support rolls and then by further successive roll forming engagement cause cold flow of the flange metal to thin and iron the flange curl to finished profile. Flange curl outside diameter is controllable by adjusting angular orientation of the workpiece rotational axis relative to the roll rotational axes, as by controlling relative diameters of the support rolls and/or relative elevations of the rotational axes of the lower rolls. ' Full face' clamping of the workpiece by the opposed inner rolls further supports the workpiece against tilting forces during initial roll forming as well as during edge conditioning roll forming performed concurrently in the roll forming station.