DIY wheel refurb log - Picture heavy

Vince

Vince

Vince

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Joined
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Location
Essex
Morning all, I thought I would find somewhere to document this latest project on my car, while I am waiting on parts for arrive I have decided to take off the wheels and have a go at a diy refurb job to see what kind of finish I can get. If I mess them up then I am happy to get them done but I am trying to do more with the car and they need doing even if I plan on getting a second set so I thought why not give it a go. First off I went out and got all the bits I needed some of which I already had. Everything I am using is in this picture apart from the primer that I am using.


image post

Basically what I have is different grades of wet and dry from 80 grit right up to 2000 grit, filler primer, silver wheel paint, 2k clear, BodyAlu 2 part alloy filler, tack cloths and some mixing trays and applicators.

I started taking some pictures on the second wheel but the first one was far worse with damage almost all around the rim, either way ill get going with a few pics.

This is the second wheel as it came off the car:







You can see some pretty nasty damage on the edge of the rim.

First of all a good degrease and a wash, all you need here is some gunk and some warm water:



Mrs is away so I bought the wheel indoors for a bit of wet sanding:


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here is the worst of the damage once sanded down a little:











Next up I needed to mix up the alloy filler, not sure on the quantity of hardener needed as all the instructions are in foreign so about this much seemed to go off pretty quickly:



Next up I applied the filler to the nasty areas trying to build back up the profile of the wheel, this is much harder than it looks, I am sure there is a trick to it, probably in how much hardener vs compound but this is what I ended up with:







After a quick sand back with 500 and working my way up to 1500, making sure to keep everything nice and wet:





You can see that there is still some raised areas so I decided to give the rest of the wheel a good key and go for a second lighter layer of the filler, sanding back again to give a nice smooth finish to touch:







And this is the two wheels I have prepped so far ready for primer:



Next up I masked up the first wheel ready for a coat of filler primer which I laid down in the back garden just as we were beginning to lose light outside, here is the finish of the primer on the first wheel, the worst of the 4 on my car:









And with the masking removed:




I am really happy that the profile of the rim all seems good again and is nice and smooth, I know the top coat is where it all matters so tomorrow I will be sanding back some of the filler primer with 2000 grit to get out any tiny imperfections before putting my silver top coat on.

I will update as I go.
 
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/subscribes to thread

I'm about to have a pop at a DIY refurb on my 19" alloys but I'm going to have a stab at using an all in one DIY kit bought on the bay of 'E's. I know they can be a bit hit or miss but I figured I had nothing to lose. If I make a pigs ear of it I'll have them done professionally.

Not sure why I'm bothering mind you, the missus uses the rims as some sort of clever parking aid to tell her when she is close enough to the kerb. :D
 
pepsilol said:
Why didn't you just localise the repairs?
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Uploaded decent images into OP.

I decided to do a full refurb rather than localising as I have no idea how good a match the colour I have is. Also as I am about as big an amature as they come i didn't trust myself to blend the colours in any decent way.
 
before
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after
414601_435376443144882_1594351698_o.jpg


sadly 3 months later got out of track and totally messed up that nice job :P
 
Make sure that coat of primer is ultra smooth, its pretty much the only thing you can bugger up at that point. Put the time in making that silky and the paint will look top notch, assuming you can spray properly :)
 
ins0mn1ac said:
Make sure that coat of primer is ultra smooth, its pretty much the only thing you can bugger up at that point. Put the time in making that silky and the paint will look top notch, assuming you can spray properly :)
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Already on top of that and am knocking it back with p2000 today, also setting up a spray booth in one of our undecorated rooms so that I can lay down the top coat indoors. :)
 
Ok here we go with installment number two, today was a long day mrs was due back and outside was nasty raining so didn't think I was going to be able to put a top coat down. Anyway mrs gets home and conversation goes something like this:

Mrs: What's up with you?
me: Raining so it means I can't paint my wheels
Mrs: Why don't you do it in the garage?
Me: Garage has the car in it and its got no wheels on.
Mrs: Isn't there somewhere else you can paint?

So because we have only recently moved into this place three months ago and so far I have only managed to rip out and replace 3 rooms we have plenty of space that is being used for storage and decorating gear. The downstairs of the house has 3 reception rooms one of which is an extension off of the back of the garage that has become my office/man cave. and is yet to be touched in terms of decorating. It has decent ventilation and a door to the back garden and can be sealed off from the rest of the property. The mess in question:



Cover up anything that you care about and tape the door up, put cats upstairs and open windows:



Clear out a corner and craft a makeshift spray booth from black bags and masking tape. Professional job I know!



With the decision made it was time for a bit more prep on the wheel, again hitting the filler primer with 1500 and 2000 grit, you can see where i've gone right back where some of the worst damage was on this wheel:







Tabby Cat assessing the structural rigidity of the wheels:








Gandi Cat just checking the finish is up to scratch and giving his seal of approval:





With the prep done it was time to mask up ready for the makeshift booth:







Now it was time to give it a go with the top coat and see what we get, the first dust coat looked good but as I started putting a bit more colour down 20 mins later on the second coat, the nozzel started spitting a little and made a bit of a mess of the rim.

Normally it is at this point I end up getting annoyed and making it worse but the second I noticed it I stopped waited for it to dry for a few hours and knocked the coat back a little bit with 2000 grit. While I was doing this I swapped the nozzel from another can and left the first in thinners to soak.

This is a picture of the paint and some of the problems:







After a lot of patience, a lot of time with wet and dry and my mind still intact (just):



I am happy with that. Nasty marks all gone and a nice even finish. Now I need to wait for a nice day more than 24 hours from now to lay down the 2k clear on them. So far it's taken about 4 hours prep on each wheel then another couple putting right my mess when I ruined it.
 
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I agree, we're now bordering giving someone else £40 a corner to deal with it. If this starts flaking due to lack of tacking, baking etc then we have a big fail here.
 
pepsilol said:
I agree, we're now bordering giving someone else £40 a corner to deal with it. If this starts flaking due to lack of tacking, baking etc then we have a big fail here.
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I don't disagree, however this wasn't about the difference in 30 quid doing it myself and a couple of hundred giving them to a pro. My uncle runs a body shop so it wouldn't have been all that difficult to give him a call and drop them off. This was more about me getting the satisfaction of doing them myself and perhaps learning something along the way. Pretty much the same as I'm doing with repairs on the car at the moment. Over the last few months I've stripped the front end, replaced all the rads and condensers and a fair amount of cooling pipes. I've replaced the thermostat, updated the water pump, replaced the leaking oil cooler seals and plan on doing more including a caliper refurb (seals and paint).

If they go bad or arnt hard wearing enough then lesson learned, if they come out ok then I learned something and will be happy.
 
danza said:
Isn't 1500-2000 grit a bit fine for keying?

Looking good so far though. I'm toying with doing the same to the wheels on my car.
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It is, I am using a fine scotch pad for keying prior to spraying. Then I give the wheel a good tack before putting down any paint. I checked the wheel before heading out this morning and its looking good. Quite happy up to this point!
 
Vince said:
It is, I am using a fine scotch pad for keying prior to spraying. Then I give the wheel a good tack before putting down any paint. I checked the wheel before heading out this morning and its looking good. Quite happy up to this point!
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Snazzy!

Might give you a shout with some questions if thats cool? My wheels are mullered and I'm having a quiet month this month so might give it a go. :)
 
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