Update on DIY BBS RA Wheel refurb

[jeremybarker]

Thought i'd post some pics of the start of my wheel refurbing. I bought 4 BBS RA's to replace the "Vauxhall misfits" currently on the MK2. Rather annoyingly i missed the bent lips on two of the riims and after being quoted £75 to straigthen each one (if it could be done) i decided i had nothing to lose and rather than being anoyed with myself i gave it a go and set to the rim with a careful selections of hammers and applied some brute force.

The rim was a little worse than the picture below when i started but i couldn't put it on as it was so anthing i could do with it would be better. It was a little like seeing what happened as i went along but after initially knocking seven bells with the hammer to get the lip back into shape i could begin to re-shape the metal on the face and edges and eventually got it to being somewhere half decent. I'll try and find another rim at some point but the inside of the wheel and lip was straight and it had recently been fited with a new tyre so it must have balanced up.

Let me know what you think and if you can spot where the damage was (or still is )

Kinda looked a bit worse than this before


Lip repaired as best i can and the face has been cleaned and sanded back


Started like this


Now looks like this


Noow the rim is kind of done i'll get the tre removed and take off the external weights finish prepping it and decide how to paint it.

Was thinking of a silver lip and dark anthracite centres.  Then i just need to do the other three

[lewis1641]

Before you go to the trouble of painting take the hammered wheels to a tyre fitter and have them spun up on the balances to make sure they are sound. Sometimes a flatspot on a rim is just the beginning of the damage.

Also check them regularly for cracks- aluminium doesn't take too kindly to being beaten back into shape.

Good beating skills though

[Mr Blue]

good effort. That will ballance up easy! but as above ^

Just get the weights stuck on the inside.

Ive had welded up and redrilled wheels ballanced up with no problems.

[The Mighty Elvi]

Thought i'd post some pics of the start of my wheel refurbing. I bought 4 BBS RA's to replace the "Vauxhall misfits" currently on the MK2.

"vauxhall misfits" +1

Check out my Calibra wheels.   

[jeremybarker]

Another update on the RA's, the wheels have been acid etch primed,primed again and then wet sanded with 800 followed by 1200 and are now ready for the silver to go on. Decided to stick to silver all over as it's OEM plus i didn't want to wreck the hours of prep by making a hash of masking two colours. Each wheel has had about 15 hours of prep to get them to the paint stage. I had a real job knocking the bent rims back into shape plus i also had to resurface by hand the lips that had seen more than a few kurbs in their time whilst also removing some nicks on the surface of the wheels.

Overall i'd guess the price of paying for someone to refurb them would have been over £400 as i was quoted £75 to repair each of the two dented wheels. The total cost in materials and paint has come in at less than £75 

The etch primer went on so well and it does prove that it's 90% prep and 10% finish.

It's been a long time getting to this stage






Still had to go back and re filler,sand and prime to get the last of the imperfections out


Primed and ready for the wet and dry


Sanding done on all four wheels done now and ready for the final finish

[SoundillusioN]

Mine need doing too and intend to do the same.... split colour though and the polished area goes furthur back than just the dished part so fook knows how to mask that....

anyway, you've done a grand job there, look great!..  did you use any epoxy metal to fill scuffs?

[Wayne]

Excellent work

[jeremybarker]

  I really thought long and hard about doing the silver rim and anthracite centres, to be honest i'd have polished the lips but due to the bends in the rim the metal wasn't good enough after being hit with a hammer.

The chips and scuffs on the lips were all gently hit with a light hammer to remove the high spots, sanded into shape and then filled with some metal filler, I've never done this before so it's been a case of taking my time and finding what worked best.

You can see where the radius finishes on the outer rim but i chickened out trying to mask it off as even the slightest mismatch and it'll look pants, best left to the professionals.

I've laid the first run of silver now so i'll probably give them all three coats of silver and three coats of lacquer to finish off, nearly there 

[Phil1980]

Superb job there, nothing more satisfying than doing a good job yourself. 

[Thom89]

Nice job.. If you do decide to 2 tone them, you MUST paint the silver first! otherwise successful masking will be almost impossible...
masking RA's is actually very easy, with a roll of 3M fine line masking tape (3mm) as said paint silver first, leave over night, mask silver up to the sharp line in the casting, paint the other colour, remove masking, then lacquer the whole lot... doddle!
looking forward to seeing them finished, whatever you decide..

Here's a pic of mine I did some weeks back, polished rim, new BBS valves and center caps, and black bolt covers to finish (from dealer, 79p each)




Thom