 xav
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Location: Airdrie, Ecosse
Registered: Jan 08
Posts: 1545
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Post #1 |
i think its time to show you all how far ive got with my wheel refurb 
the story began when i got hold of a set of MOMO Arrows complete with pirelli runflats for £50 from a guy that robert knows through work. the original idea was to refurbish a set of cheap wheels which had miner damage around the edge of the rim which i would sell on afterwards. i thought the whole process would be reasonably easy but i was wrong.. very wrong. after recieving the wheels one by one for about 2 months i knew that this was not going to be easy.
they were badly damaged and extremely dirty and as far as i know, had been fermenting in the back of someones garage for a long time. oooooo nooooo!
a couple of snaps of what they looked like when i first got them and gave them a ligh clean with some wipes. apologies as they were taken by a webcam..
these pics dont show the full extent of the damage. one of the wheels was completely covered in brake dust and dirt which wouldnt come off even with brillo pads and another had two very large chips almost as if it was hit with the sharp end of a hammer. one was 4mm by 6mm deep and the other around 7mm by 4mm 
Part 1
after reading various refurb threads, i decided to use fibreglass to fill the gaps. its the same stuff that squiff used only with a different name
the first thing i did was give the wheels a really good clean to remove all the crap. ITS IMPORTANT THAT THEY ARE AS CLEAN AS POSSIBLE! obviously not every single bit of dirt will be romoved but the more the better.
the next thing was to sand down the wheels to remove the old lacqeur and most of the original paint so the new primer will stick. you can see how the tyre machine i used has damaged the back of the wheel so this was a difficult part to sand down.
half way there
be sure to clean the wheel after sanding it down!
at last it was time to use the filler! it is a lot easier to use something to mix the filler on. in this case i used a dirty great slab of mdf
as you might know, this stuff is savage so id recommend some gloves to prevent it ripping some skin off.
after it dries, (20-60 mins) sand down the filler to take the original shape of the alloy. i used a file to remove the rough spikey stuff then the "mouse" from bosch. honestly, using a small electric sander makes a really big difference!
a very rough grade of sand paper was used here. i found it stuffed into a cupboard in my grandads garage.
also this stuff gives off tonnes of dust so i used a face mask to stop me getting high. it helps a lot as you end up covered. luckily ive got some overalls aswell 
rough stuff gone. wheels starting to look round again :cool
i also tried to smooth the centre caps but because they are made up of two separate pieces, the plastic and the big centre bit, the filler started to crack around the edge because of the flexing so i scrapped the idea
primer time!! after a trip to halfrauds one weekend i ended up paying a fortune for 2 tins of filler primer, one tin of grey primer and some 1500 grit wet an dry. ive been told that it works quite well
yellow is the new silver 
now, the eagle-eyed may notice the imperfections on the edge of the rim and the centre of the wheel in the next few pics. this was caused by tiny chips in the filler which are really only visible when the primer is on. you couldnt feel them when sanding as the dust had gone into the holes. they can be filled again after primer
to summarise whats happened so far:
clean the wheel as much as possible with whatever youve got to use
sand down the wheel using a rougher grade of paper working your way up to around 400 grade
fill the wheel using the filler of your choice using a fair amount just to make sure all the gaps are filled
sand down the filler using the rough stuff again and work your way up
clean the wheel off again ready for filler primer
dont whatever you do, pile the filler primer right on. use light strokes and build up light layers sanding lightly in between layers to remove dust and particles that may have stuck to the wet primer. if at any time it decides to run, let it dry then sand it back out flat.
after it drys, give the wheel a good look over for imperfections and wipe off the dust that came off.
thats all i have for now. i will be going back down on monday 21st to finish off the filler primer then continue with the normal primer.
when i finish painting the wheel ill include a list of all the things i bought, where i bought them and how much they cost. ive only been working on one wheel and have spent £90 overall in the last few months as ive been doing them one or two days every 4 weeks
so what do you guys think so far? not bad for a 16 year old 
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Posted Mon, 13 Jul 09 19:35
