Well it finally happened - paying for wheel weights

[Ferdinand]

I finally got around to calling my friend who manages a large commercial tire shop, including a retread operation. He didn't even know that WW are made from lead anymore until he checked in the shop. One of his techs advised me that they have too much zinc in them, and would be bad for casting bullets - ? OK, I said, just save them for me and let me know when you have some accumulated.

Another friend who manages a commercial fleet of 100+ trucks is asking his tire supplier for lead on my behalf. So I might have free WW coming before too long - I hope, I hope...

[fredj338]

I finally got around to calling my friend who manages a large commercial tire shop, including a retread operation. He didn't even know that WW are made from lead anymore until he checked in the shop. One of his techs advised me that they have too much zinc in them, and would be bad for casting bullets - ? OK, I said, just save them for me and let me know when you have some accumulated.

Another friend who manages a commercial fleet of 100+ trucks is asking his tire supplier for lead on my behalf. So I might have free WW coming before too long - I hope, I hope...

Get what you can, it's going to be quickly drying up. The Kalif ban is just the ebginning. AS the major tire chains ban them here, they will convert across the country. All the Euro cars have had non lead ww for 6-7yrs now. The wwriting is on the wall for sure.

[WILCO]

$10.00 for a 5 gallon bucket.

I've paid 5 bucks for a 3/4 full 5 gallon bucket.

[Suo Gan]

Local scrap place. $.25/lb for any lead weather its WW, pure or lyno.

Or solder. Bought a bucket of lead a few months ago with over thirty pounds of bar solder in it. I didn't flinch. How much do you want for all this dirty lead in this bucket .

[Phat Man Mike]

yes it's hard finding w/w around my area now!

[JesseCJC]

I found a few buckets, 1 for 20 bucks and the other free but about 60% is all zinc My buddies that were searching for me ended up with 2 un-opened 1lb boxes of stick on weights though as odd as that is

[Andy_P]

I've never encountered more than about 2% zinc. When I do, I save it and sell it for scrap - it's worth more than lead.

[sljacob]

I just checked with a local scrap dealer. his asking price is .50 cents/lb and they go fast.

[JesseCJC]

I've never encountered more than about 2% zinc. When I do, I save it and sell it for scrap - it's worth more than lead.

Both of the places I got it from were from new car dealerships though. When you sell back the zinc, do you have to sort it or clean it in any way or do you just sell it as is just free of tire stems and such?

[fredj338]

Both of the places I got it from were from new car dealerships though. When you sell back the zinc, do you have to sort it or clean it in any way or do you just sell it as is just free of tire stems and such?

At some point there i sa loss of economy selling back scrap. If you have to drive to a scrap yard to sell it back, what did the gas cost you? If you are there to buy scrap, might as well sell too, but for me, I would have to drive round trip 50m to sell scrap zinc. Nope, it just gets tossed for me.

[quasi]

I started casting in 1979 and have always had tp pay for wheel weights around here. $20.00 a 5 gallon pail has been the going rate here for a while.

[Ferdinand]

I'm not convinced that the CA ban will go nationwide. It's not the tire dealers that are driving this, it's environmentalists.

Has it even been shown that ww leach anything out while in service anyway? I thought that hardened lead wouldn't do that. Look at the Civil War era projectiles that are dug out of the ground looking pretty much like they did 150+ years ago.

[davcar45]

Lead comes out of the ground, you'll never convince me lead going back into the ground is all that bad. People make lead out to be some boogie man. Look, don't eat eat and don't drink it and you probably don't have much to worry about.

I wouldn't want a lead fork and spoon. But this nonsense about lead wheel weights doing some harm is just nuts. Are there really that many WW laying on the side of the highway? If so, it may be easier to walk the interstate collecting lead than going to a tire shop and asking for it. I doubt that's the case. So what is the real issue?

[par0thead151]

Don't forget the Chaws. EHYAAAUUCK!!

i buy from scrap yards for 20 cents a pound.

[fredj338]

I'm not convinced that the CA ban will go nationwide. It's not the tire dealers that are driving this, it's environmentalists.

Has it even been shown that ww leach anything out while in service anyway? I thought that hardened lead wouldn't do that. Look at the Civil War era projectiles that are dug out of the ground looking pretty much like they did 150+ years ago.

Common sense has little to do with legislation. If the major tire manuf are banned form lead ww in Kalif. they will eventually buy all their ww from one source for economy sake. So I see a nationwide ban either coming form the EPA or just through attrition as the majors stop using them. So I say get what yo ucan now, it's drying up in certain locations already.

[bbs70]

In my area its getting hard to find ww.
Even soft lead is getting harder to find at scrap yards.
A lot of people around here use lead for sinkers, decoy weights, and counter weights for stock cars.
The going price is 50 a lb if you can find it.
I picked up 350 lbs of lead pipe yesterday, another dealer had just sold 800 lbs to a guy who makes fishing weights.

[JesseCJC]

Just called the local scrap yard, 10c/lb for zinc wheel weights.... not worth it

[357shooter]

i buy from scrap yards for 20 cents a pound.

Any tips on what to google for regarding scrap yards? I seem to find lots of folks that buy lead but don't seem to sell it to individuals.

Also, the big tire shop chains around here (outside Atlanta) all have some corp policy to send the lead back to be recycled.

2 other shops had some lead that totaled 70# last month, but nothing since. Do you guy hit the smaller independent tire stores first ? This can be frustrating...

[lwknight]

Just called the local scrap yard, 10c/lb for zinc wheel weights.... not worth it

Zinc is higher than lead. That scrapyard is putting the bite on you.

[leadman]

My friend bought a new Dodge truck with zinc wheelweights on it. Got some wheelweights from a multi line new car dealer last year, lots of zinc in it.

I sold my clips and dross from wheel weights to a scrap yard last week for 20 cents a pound.

A couple weeks before that it cost me 59 cents a pound to buy wheel weights from a different scrapper, but he let me sort thru the mess. He said the les than 40k price was over 70 cents then.

I have good sources for lead but they are not wheel weights and don't want to make round shot in my Littleton shotmaker. Getting awful hard to find WW.