Wheel Refurbing Questions!

[godsANGER]

Oh, and they now have tyres on obv, so will need to do some masking work first. Tyres are slightly stretched so at least I have space to get between the rim and tyre!

Is masking tape and newspaper suitable, or will I need something more 'hardcore'?

Warning, mega huge pic (6.1mb) but its big enough to see the stretch

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/5025877156_68ee142fa3_o.jpg

i am leaving my tyers on as well trying to do it cheap as i can for now, so well just cost me for balancing when i have done them, what's best way to remove the weights on the wheels? can you just pull them off?

[godsANGER]

clean your shoes lol   joking

how you refurbishing them ? colour or you just repairing then going le natural ?

  They are the pics my mate sent me when he asked if I wanted to buy them, so not my shoes lol

Going to strip them all completely, repair the curbing, then try to match that colour as much as possible. I don't want a hugely bright silver, more of a slight grey but not as dark as anthracite

should look tidy mate, i am only doing myn black because  . .black car going for the stealth look on the out side plus don't see as many black tt comps as you see Chromed

[Dec]

Yeah will look sweet dude Had black wheels on my mk3, don't need much cleaning

Not sure on the weights, I will be leaving mine on as Im not touching the back of the wheel, just doing the face My mate fitted my tyres and balanced them so not sure on how much it is to fit them either, sorry dude

[godsANGER]

Yeah will look sweet dude Had black wheels on my mk3, don't need much cleaning

Not sure on the weights, I will be leaving mine on as Im not touching the back of the wheel, just doing the face My mate fitted my tyres and balanced them so not sure on how much it is to fit them either, sorry dude

Well having the face and half way inside of the alloy black them the last half on the inside red so taking the weights off  place round corner its £5 a tyre for balancing

[new(ish)dubber]

i've got some ats cups i'm refurbing at the moment, the dish is coming up alright with wet and try but there's a few nasty scratches around the very edge of the lip. what sort of filler can i use for this that i can sand down afterwards but leave bare? some sort of liquid metal ?

[Dec]

Right, so just taken some close ups of the curbing. Having looked at them again (and while they are dry and clean ) I don't think that the curbing will be too hard to fill on the most part, and will only need a small about (or I don't think they will need much except some patches).

Anyway so here are the pics...

















They have obviously had a poor refurb in the past as the paint is flaking off/chipped in places:

[jeremybarker]

They don't look too hard to do tbh, i'd set about flatting the whole wheel down until you have a nice smooth surface overall and so the filler has a nice key. Filler over all the scuffs and flat them back down again. It's always worth spraying a bit of primer over to see if they have been sanded smoothly. Don't do what i did and forget there was a hammer on the shelf above where i was painting as after i had finished the lacquering the damn hammer fell onto the wheel face and put three small dints in it Good job i'm changing the colour.

[Dec]

What grade sand paper would you recommend to use to get a smooth enough but still keyed finish?

Knowing me I would go up to 1200 or something and I dont think the primer would stick to that? So guessing around 600?

[jeremybarker]

1200-1500 is exactly what you want to finish off with, the acid etch primer will adhere fine to a smoothed surface.

I started off with 80 grit to get into the top layerr of lacquer/paint and then progressively worked my way upto 1200 to finish off.

What i would say is once i had a decent finish the 1200 was done as a wet and dry process, it helps get the perfectly flat finish. This is where nearly all of the prep time is spent and you need to keep checking the finish is spot on. After you've finished flatting/wet and dry sanding the final primer coat there's no going back when you put the first colour coat on, it'll show up any scratch surfaces that you didn't smooth out properly.

Just take you're time and if you start to think you rushing the job, walk away and leave it a little while.

HTH

[dom]

If you can wait a couple of days for your lacquer then i'd get this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180530500150&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Works out much cheaper than halfords (you get 1500ml for £14.10 whereas halfords you get 1000ml for £13.98)!

My dad has bought and used this on his car, whereas I used halfords lacquer on mine, little difference between them, if anything the eBay stuff applied better!