16 inch push lawn mower wheel

I have fought those rear wheels on my ancient 19 inch Yazoo high wheel push mower forever. The original wheels had tube type bicycle tires. Well got so modern bicycle tires are so thin and craptastic that they go flat if they just get within ten foot of a thorn. And I use this old mower as mini brush hog on rough ground, so lot harder use than regular lawn mower would get. Plastic replacements off modern high wheel mower not an option for this kind of rough use. Fine, I then tried pair of wheelbarrow wheels and tires, widened the support area to let them fit. They are paper thin too and made mower hard to push. Upgrading them to boat trailer tires or solid wheelbarrow tires would just add lot more weight that would make it even harder to push.

So bit the bullet and bought 16 inch cart wheels with wire spokes and solid tire. Nothing to go flat and narrow and light weight so easy enough to push. Well despite what I thought was crazy high price at TSC, they were made in China and somebody that flunked out of engineering college designed the spokes and hub assembly, meaning they failed and wheels collapsed.

Grrr.... get lemons, its lemonade time. At least the solid tires held up. I kept the rim and tire, but made new solid center out of treated 3/4 plywood. Glued it to inside of the rim with polyurethane glue. This held up for while until the glue failed. Reglued it, thinking I didnt do a good job of it. Second time glue failed, I decided to weld tabs on one side of the rim so I could bolt rim to the plywood center. Did that on one of wheels this morning while had mig welder out. Temp soared so havent painted and installed it yet just got tabs welded. To make tabs, I cut two large flat washer in two. Each half welded to rim to make a tab so four tabs total. That should finally keep the dang wheel together and functional. I will wait and do the other wheel when its glue joint fails. If I did it now, would have to somehow cut or break the glue joint since I cant weld with wood glued to the rim or set the wood on fire. Better just to let glue joint fail naturally. And it will. Who knew mower wheels were under such stress during use.... A continuous glue joint really shouldnt fail. It didnt separate from either the metal rim nor the wood center, the glue itself failed. Perhaps silicone sealant would work better? But the bolt tabs definitely will take care of the problem and dont add significant weight. I do like the solid plywood center. Spoked wheels let sticks and such get in between spokes while mowing, and lock up the wheel so it wont turn and even bend wire spokes.

Went ahead and bolted together the wheel yesterday without painting. Works fine. Didnt even use any glue, just four bolts through the tabs and plywood center. I just wanted to have mower usable for next three rare cool days in July to try and get caught up some on my mowing. Been an unusually rainy summer this year. Usually mowing pretty much over by mid July until rains come again in fall. Try and post a pic, but sure most can figure what it looks like from my description. As they say, its not rocket science..... But could be quite handy bit knowledge for anybody say making a garden cart. Bicycle wheels cant support that much weight and have minimal bearings, but if outer rims salvaged from used bike wheels were attached to plywood centers using heavier duty bearings, and user didnt mind dealing with blankety blank thin casing modern bike tires/tubes, then it would be strong enough and lot cheaper than boughten cart wheels yet still relatively light weight. There are tricks to make bike tires more flat resistant with kelvar liners and such. Its how much fiddly crap you want to put up with. I know you cant buy solid tire cart wheels very economically. Try and find cheap ones and you end up with garbage like I did with these wheels I bought for my Yazoo. Be nice if somebody just sold solid tires that one could mount on existing bicycle or cart rims.