Guide to refurbishing alloy wheels

[mrpatterson2008]

Recently refurbished my alloys and thought I'd do a little guide on how to do it

Materials to do all four wheels/            white high build primer x2 400ml cans, your desired colour x 2 400ml cans, and clear lacquer x2 400ml cans

First take them off the car

Then wash them really well

Let the tyres down

sand them down so any corrosion is sanded out and all the paint is well flattened

if any parts need filling then use some easy sand car filler and fill it in then sand smooth

the surface doesn't have to be perfectly smooth because your using high build primer

next mask off you tyre and dust cap

remove the centre cap

next primer it, about 5 coats

then put them in the house for an hour  or two to dry

then do the main coat, again you'll need about 5 or six coats.

Then put them back in the house and leave overnight

in the morning do the lacquer, about 8 coats

back in the house and leave for another few hours

and thats it basically




here are some pictures of some of the stages and the finished product

[Ben Lessani]

I did mine not too long ago,

whats black and chrome with 6 legs
...and here's how they turned out post-painting. 2 coats of primer and 5 coats of satin black hammerite and this is what it looked like.

from



to



got to say - it looks pretty damn smart, a hellish improvement if i do say so myself. i was a little bit curious about whether i made a mistake doing it in satin black - rather than matt. so i used the remainder of my matt spray and did half a wheel in that for comparison...but i'm torn, i don't know whether i prefer the satin or matt, time will tell...



spot the difference 

[Guy]

nice post mr p

ben - what did you use for the centres of your wheels? are they painted - they look polished to me?

[Ben Lessani]

Super polished

[Guy]

Super polished

what you use innit?

[Ben Lessani]

bling bling baby
so, as promised today, the wheels came off 1 by 1 to get their clean. i took about 1 million pictures, so i will try and remain calm  when posting - i have a habit of going image crazy. i cleaned all the wheels in the same fashion, after realising that plain old autosol couldn't manage the job on its old, i went to the car bits shop and picked up a few things...



farecla 6" compound mop, farecla 2" compound mop, poloshing mop and backing plate, fine grade steel wool

i first scrubbed the wheel down with a sponge and some diluted fairy liquid (not neat), rinsed it off, applied some farecla g3 cutting compound and went over as much as i could with the 2" mop, i cut the surface until the compound had disappeared (keeping the mop moist at all times). then i rubbed the surface down by hand in the hard to reach areas with the g3, cleaned it off with a clean rag, then used a diluted mix of about 1/10 water and autosol in a spray bottle and went over it with the polishing pad until all the liquid had gone, then just gave it a quick wipe by hand in the hard areas again. because the wheels weren't in great nick when i first got them, i always meant to spray the gaps between the spokes black again, so now was my chance. i masked off the centre and rim and primed with some zinc 182 and then sprayed it in halfords matt black spray paint.

i started with the drivers wheel - which fortunately had been kept dry and warm in the garage for the 4 months the car was off the road (shame i can't say the same about the two rears  ). it wasn't in too bad condition, but i worked over it the same as the others to ensure a consistent result.

front offside before



after



now the sad ones, the rear offside, it had been sat in the winter weather for 4 months taking a beating, it was badly corroded with pitting, and discolouration of the metal. i, against my better judgement, had to attack this with wire wool (the sponge wasn't shifting anything). it did score the metal - but i hoped to be able to buff this out with the g3 (and i did )

rear offside before



after






front nearside after






rear nearside before



after





i started it at about 12pm and finished at 8pm, so about 2 hrs per wheel to clean it up and give it a primer coating (i will put the final coat on tomorrow and put about 5 coats on over the next few days to be safe). i don't expect the paint to last very long (6 months +) but at this point, i can always get the wheels professionally refurbished. look at my poor car teetering on the edge on a sloped driveway on 3 axle stands. i slapped myself, came to my senses and put the old p-slots on at this point.



when the paint is all done drying - i will post the photos of them finished, fingers crossed i masked off well enough and they don't come out looking crap! wish me luck.

[Guy]

bingo



bango



thank you - spent about 2 hours the other afternoon trying to polish one rim on my anni BBS RXII's and wasn't getting a shine but not the super shine you were achieving... I will try this

will report back

[Ben Lessani]

The G3 helped work out the pitting from the corrosion - but to get the shine I got, it was the dilluted Autosol. 1 part autosol to 9 parts water in a little spray bottle - using the foam pad with the drill gave amazing results, it was a mirror like finish.

Neat Autosol was just causing me problems, it was making the metal more dirty than it was before - and you certainly CAN'T use it with a power tool, it burns too easily.

After those photos, when I cleaned the car, I laid a coat of AG SRP and two layers of Collinite 476s - I haven't cleaned my car/wheels since then The wheels are pure black at the moment through brake dust and 11 months of non-cleaning .... but I wiped my finger across it - and under the nice coat of wax, is a beatifully clean wheel 

[Guy]

The G3 helped work out the pitting from the corrosion - but to get the shine I got, it was the dilluted Autosol. 1 part autosol to 9 parts water in a little spray bottle - using the foam pad with the drill gave amazing results, it was a mirror like finish.

Neat Autosol was just causing me problems, it was making the metal more dirty than it was before - and you certainly CAN'T use it with a power tool, it burns too easily.

After those photos, when I cleaned the car, I laid a coat of AG SRP and two layers of Collinite 476s - I haven't cleaned my car/wheels since then The wheels are pure black at the moment through brake dust and 11 months of non-cleaning .... but I wiped my finger across it - and under the nice coat of wax, is a beatifully clean wheel 

i was sanding with fine grade wet and dry 400/800/1200 and then using AG metal polish followed with belgom alu and poorboys wheel sealant (3 coats)

poorboys wheel sealant gives the same results as your colly wax solution... but I haven't achieved the high shine i wanted... hmmm... what to do...

where did you get the mini drill bit polishing pad from?

[Ben Lessani]

Well I've got a trade account at Maccess, so it was only like £5 from there. Its the Farecla Smart Repair kit

I could lock that drill to 1800 RPM - which is pretty much the limit for this kind of work.

The shine is real hard work, it took me 2hrs per wheel - it was torture, but totally worth it.

I was just doing some metal polishing today (my cig lighter) and I was using red polish compound, and it brought a seriously good finish. I guess working with fine compounds like grey/red will start to get you the result you want.