How To DIY Alloy Wheel Repair Refurbishment! (pics)

[:: blade ::]

great guide mate, i used this to refurb some rims i got off ebay

unfortunatly, i cant seem to spray the laquer right and its not a smooth texture, more like a 'orange peel'. have you got any info on how to spray the laquer on so it ends un nice, smooth and shiney?

i will post up pics as soon as my post count is over 5

thanks very much

:: blade ::

[:: blade ::]

here are the pics

before:


after:


hope you like, just need to laquer them when i find out how to do it properly,

[joshwa]

Sounds like a dodgy can of lacquer to me. Unless it's re-acting to the paint you've used. Are they both (the paint and lacquer) from the same brand?

edit - just seen the pics - very nice chrome metallic look! wow! Is that halfords stuff? What colour / paint did you get?

[:: blade ::]

yea im using the halford stuff, as i find it easy to use, and i use all the same brand when spraying the colour is ford graphite grey, as i wanted something darker than silver but not as dark as black as they will be eventually going onto a black car when it gets sprayed.

[joshwa]

You could try one of the nozzels from the other cans on the can of lacquer. Or perhaps you might need to wait longer between the paint and lacquer stage? I'm not sure really, as I'm not familiar with Halfords spray paints, plus I'm no expert

[:: blade ::]

ive let the colour dry for over a week, lol, because i didnt have the money at the time for the laquer

[markymicro]

I don't mean to p**s on your fire, and you have done a nice job, but to save all that hassel wouldn't it be better just keep away from the kirb?

[:: blade ::]

lol, theyve not been on my car yet, i got em off ebay like that for £31

[markymicro]

I ment in general to the overall post (How To DIY Alloy Wheel Repair Refurbishment!) not just you
Good buy though.

[dave87]

Nice wheels blade - Mum had similar ones fitted to her Escort GTi - looked lovely. Loved that car, shame we got rid of it, bout 5 years ago now....

[:: blade ::]

cheers dave, there like the GTis, but are smaller mine are 13" and not 15"-16", everyone on fiestaturbo.com has got them so i thought id be different

[joshwa]

Hi Blade - did you get to the bottom of this? Were you spraying at room temperature, or outside on a cold day? Josh

PS - I've just done my third wheel and used Carplan / Tetrysol "Alloy wheel" Spray paint - Colour "Bright Silver" as the colour I picked originally seems a bit like dark grey / matt grey.

[dave87]

cheers dave, there like the GTis, but are smaller mine are 13" and not 15"-16", everyone on fiestaturbo.com has got them so i thought id be different

I wondered why they looked odd in the photo (compared to their larger brother)

The wicked thing about Mum's car was, that although there were thousands of escort GTis in the UK, there were only a handful of GTi Estates. Was quite cool

[listy]

thinking of trying this on wifes car if i could get few spares

how much do garages charge to remove tyre then refit after?

[dave87]

If you've got a friendly mechanic, a couple of pints I would guess. Not likely to be much more...

[joshwa]

thinking of trying this on wifes car if i could get few spares

how much do garages charge to remove tyre then refit after?

If you don't mind putting your spare wheel on your car, you can swap the wheels, take the alloy inside (or where-ever), and you can mask off the whole tyre area, then refurb the alloy.

It tends to depend on the garage, occassionally they'll do it for free, other times they'll want £10 (for new valve, balancing).

Here's a pic of the latest wheel I've done: