A complete Guide on wheel refurbishment.
 

Hi all, I have just received a PM from forum member "sonyericsson" asking how I refurbished my wheels, so I have decided to post a guide for everyones use.

As with any task, the time spent is proportional to the quality of the finished product.

The wheels I refurbished are 15" GLT vrigo alloys that can be seen on my car.

I already had the tyres removed but you ca do it with the tyres on, just take out the valve (i.e. let all air out) and cut out some semi-circles of card and push them between the wheel and the tyre bead.

If you have the tyres off the car, make sure the area where the tyre beads onto the wheels is in good condition; if not, get a file or some rough sand paper and get this area fairly smooth, otherwise the tyres will slowly deflate. Also, if the tyres are off, then it is best to remove any wheel weights but if the tyres are on, just leave the weights and paint them with the wheel although this will require you to touch up the wheels when you next have new tyres fitted and the wheels balanced. Another good idea if the tyres are off is to cut off the valve from the inside and have a new one fitted with the tyres (this reduces the risk of the valves leaking and it also means the hole that the va;ve goes into gets a coat of paint (making it sealed better)

Here are my wheels as they started out:

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...setSteven2.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...setSteven1.jpg

You can see they are quite harshly curbed around the edge and they have marks where weights have been attached. They were also a bit corroded in the areas down the holes where the wheel nuts go and in the tight areas to get to where the sopkes meet the outer of the wheel.

First of all, get a wire brush on a drill and wire brush down the holes where the wheel nuts are seated. (this removes any corrosion that may be unsightly when the wheels are finished)

Now, any curb marks on the outer edge of the rim now need to be removed. The best way I found to do this is to get an orbital sander and go round the outer edge of the wheel getting any marks out. If you only have a mark in one area you will still need to sand around the whole circumference of the rim or you will end up with a flat on where you have sanded out the mark.

Then, hand sand the whole wheel removing any marks that may be protruding from the wheel and any marks that may have been caused prevuiously by the wire brush and the orbital sander.

If there are no other marks on the wheel then you are ready to jump to the step where you start undercoating...

If there are any marks on the wheel that are inset (i.e gouges - not sticking up from the wheel) then use some ordinary body filler mixed up to fill even the tiniest imperfections. You can do this in all areas except where the wheel nuts are seated and the area round the edge that is normally curbed (when tyres are fitted the filler would likely chip out - thats why all marks must be brought out by the orbital sander)

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08864.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08861.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08860.jpg

If you do this well then you will have a very good wheel that is ready for painting. If you rush, you will have marks in the finished wheels. You can see how many areas of filler there are on my wheels in the pictures above.

Paint some undercoat onto the wheels (grey or white will do). Try to cover the back of the wheels aswell and also the edges.

Use a tack rag to get any dust from the wheels (do not skip this step or you WILL have dust after you have finished the wheels. If you do not have a tack rag then wash teh wheels down and leave to dry and then use a cloth or tissue that will definitely not drop bits to remove any remaining dust)

Once this has dried, paint some sort of glossy paint onto the wheels (prefferably a light colour) so that any remaining marks show up and can be resolved using the filer technique.

Now you need to decide whether you are happy with the finish on the wheels and whether you are happy to go ahead and put the final coat(s) of paint on.

Again, if you decide to lightly rub down the wheels, use 1200 grade wet and dry and make sure you remove any dust afterwards.

At this point you can either go ahead with the final coat or you can go ahead and put several more coats of (not neccessarily the right colour) paint on to make the wheels more corrosion resistant and to fill and left over marks from the wire brush etc.

Here is a pic of one of my wheels with som ehycote wheel silver sprayed on as an extra coat to protect the wheels and build up the layers of paint (this is not the colour I wanted as it is too dark, but it gives a good surface to spray onto with the final coat):

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08879.jpg

When you get to the final coat, if you are doing the wheels silver, I would reccomend "Autoglym wheel silver" - it has a built in laquer that rises as it dries leaving a very smooth finish compared to other paints. I would still say that the wheels will ned laquering afterwards though otherwise washing the wheels will be very difficult.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f.../DSC00072j.jpg

The best way to suspend the wheels while you spray them is to either place them on a block of wood, or do as I did and stand them on aerosol cans with the lids of the cans balanced on the opposite side of the wheel centre hole (be careful it snot windy though and that they are on flat ground!)

Here is a pic of my wheel sbalanced after I had finished painting them. Obvioulsy of you are using painting on grass, you need a sheet underneath to protect the grass from the paint that would otherwise kill it!):

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f.../DSC00073d.jpg

When you do the spraying, always make sure that you stay close enough to the wheel so that the paint has not dried by the time it lands on the wheel, but stay far enough away that you do not run the paint. If you do run the paint (which will most likely happen at some point!) give it 10 or 15 seconds to dry slightly and then spray a bit extra paint over the run which melts the paint and evens the run out. Make sure you get all areas of the wheel with the paint.

Once you have done the final coat, you need to do the laquering. If you skip this step it will make the wheels very hard to clean because brake dust will get engrained into the surface.

Laquer must be sprayed on very carefully as it is very easy to run. Spray on in light coats using the method described above. Concentrate on the front area of the wheel as this is the bit you see most, but the back will also need doing for the reason mentioned previosly. Try and get into all areas like where the wheel nuts are.

Once this is finished, leave the wheels to dry (preferably in the sun) until touch dry. Then, pick up the wheel with an area that you will not see (so that if the paint is fingerprinted, it will not be seen) and move it to somewhere where the wheels can be left to harden for a week or so:

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08891.jpg

Once the wheels have hardened, either blow up your tyres again, or go and have your new ones fitted. If having tyres fitted, it is worth mentioning to the tyre fitter that the wheels have just been painted, so could he try his best not to chip them.

Also, if you are having new valves fitted, ask for some chome ones as these really complement your newly refurbished wheels!

Refit any items like centre caps etc.

Refit the wheel sto the car making sure that all nuts are greased and that you do not scratch them with the wheel wrench.

These are the finished products of my wheels:

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08924.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08925.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08926.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...3/DSC08927.jpg

I hope that this guide has been helpfull and if I have forgotten anything - PM me and I will edit the post.

REMEMBER: Do not curb your wheels after alll this work!!!

excellent job
 

you would put many wheel refurbishers to shame, an excellent posting, worthy of bob inserting it into the how to section.

paul

Great how 2 thanks for posting it up .

i think the wheels look great, but its obvious you do need a little bit more practise, if you can arrange to pick my wheels up you can practise on these then you`ll be perfect!lol,seriously really good,regards malcolmk

Thanks very much everyone!

Message to Bob: If you think this is suitable to either put as a sticky or in the how to section then could you do just that please. Thanks, Steve.

Steve

What a truely excellent guide. I will post up how I do with my Polaris wheels, want them looking like new before I fit them. Just out of interest, has anyone got locking wheel nuts for the 940, if so where did you get them, and what sort of cost are they. Will try my local dealers for prices, but if others could post where they got theirs and price it would be helpful.

Thanks
Stephen.

Thanks again for this guide.

You are welcome - Id like to think people will print it off and use it while refurbishing their wheels :D

Steve

Nice one Steve..........:) good attention to detail is what its all about really.

Cheers

yep - attension to detail and the quality of the preparation is directly proportional to the quiclity of the finished product(s)!

I spent a series of about 5 days in the summer holidays doing my wheels (if you include leaving things to dry etc)

Steve

hello, very good post. but i think i have read in the past somewhere that you should not put grease or oil on wheel nuts/studs. not sure though.