DIY wheel refurb log - Picture heavy

[Vince]

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.


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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.

 

[Vince]

Why didn't you just localise the repairs?

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.

 

[Vince]

before

after

sadly 3 months later got out of track and totally messed up that nice job

That looks a decent job. If i get these sort of results I will be happy.

 

[Vince]

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

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.

 

[Vince]

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.

 

[Vince]

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.

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.

 

[Vince]

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.

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]

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.

Go for it mate, I have finished with the filler etc so if you need anything, wet and dry etc then feel free to come and grab it all. Still more than enough alloy filler to do several more sets of wheels.

 

[Vince]

you should lay down the clear about 15 to 3 mins after you have layed down the top coat if you want to keep a high gloss shiny finish other wise it will dry matt

I read this and some people say wait 15 and then lay down the clear, others say lay it down when the base is dry. I guess I will soon find out.

 

[Vince]

Looks great so far, but please tell me you are not intending on spraying 2K indoors...

I did a bit of reading and this 2k is nasty stuff so I will be waiting for a gap in the weather to get it on the wheel. Don't really want fumes from this stuff hanging around indoors. Does mean I'll have to wait for the weather before the next update.

 

[Vince]

It will be Non ISO lacquer.

How much was that can stuff?

Ok on amazon it is £14 a can but I got 2 cans for that money at my local back street motor place.

Just so everybody knows what it is as there has been mention of 1k, 2k celly based (honestly I have no idea) I just asked the fella what would do the job.

Your best having a look at their PDF catalogue, page 23, part number 520.00.0000.0

http://www.hbbody.com.gr/images/catalogues/HB_entypo_GB_ekdosiD_FINAL_LR.pdf

 

[Vince]

1k Lacquer will be ok on wheels, so long as you flat it perfectly smooth and keep the wheels clean and waxed.

However, OP I'm afraid that due to the way you have painted them I wouldn't expect it to last more than 1 winter. As you have only painted the front face of the wheel the elements will corrode the exposed alloy beyond the painted edge and creep under the paint. I also didn't see whether you have used an etch primer on the bare alloy or not, which would have held the corrosion process back a bit.

I am a bit confused here, I haven't taken the inside surface of the wheels back as they are in good all round condition, also with the top of the rim I have only taken back the front face to the topcoat for the majority of the wheel, primer in some areas and only bare metal in the areas that were damaged. the damaged areas were then sanded back and built up with alloy filler before I sprayed primer. So the inside rim is effectively factory finish. This picture from the face of the rim tonight shows that there is a small ingress about 2mm down on the inside, this is what I masked to, badly in some areas admittedly. The idea is to mask along this line again but masking what I have sprayed and just quickly knock back any overspray, this picture should explain what I mean:

Top tip - an old tent makes a good spray booth

Great idea, If the weather keeps up I may just go and buy a cheapo one.

 

[Vince]

Coming on nicely there.


On a side note. If I did that in the house I would be a dead man!!

I guess I am lucky the mrs is still pretty young at 25 so I am guessing that there is plenty of time for that to change. She would kill me if I did it in one of the rooms that I have gutted and redecorated but in that room she couldn't care less. That will all change once I have made it into our office but for now its just that mess at the back of the house to her.

 

[Vince]

Here are a couple more pics of what the wheel looks like in its top coat with the masking removed.





There are a couple of tiny imperfections but nothing I cant live with for my first wheel. In the second picture you can see the over spray on the inside rim, next job is to mask up and take this back before clear coating the wheel I think. Next time I will mask it up differently to avoid having to do this.

 

[Vince]

afraid to say for 4 hours labour plus materials per rim I would much rather spend the money having it done for me. That said I dont have the time nor patience to do it.

nice job on the cheap, how much should the materials cost in the end?

Well I already had a lot of the stuff (tack cloths, panel wipes, wet and dry paper etc) so total costs so far are at around £35 for all four wheels and this was just for the paints and primers and that alloy filler, the two other wheels have no damage just some scratches in places so will just get a quick once over.

For an hour or two at night id rather do something like this than sit and watch the television or do anything to do with work, for me this has actually been fun

 

[Vince]

I respect the time and effort that has gone into it. Looks good. It also a much better feeling doing something yourself and learning a new skill.

Hell, i could pay someone a couple of hundred pounds to fix my car when it breaks, or i could spend hours researching the problem myself, taking a chance on buying the right part and then spend a couple of hours crawling around on my back, swearing, and getting filthy fitting it - but you know what, i love doing it!

You and me both, I have the porka in lots of bits in the garage right now and have genuinely enjoyed stripping it back and replacing the cooling system. There is a lot to be said about brandishing the spanners and getting stuck in

 

[Vince]

Saving money fixing a car is one thing as you can do as good or even a better job than the mechanic fixing it but on a wheel refurb you would have to spend a lot on a chemical dip setup, a spray booth and somewhere to bake the wheels. Thats not even including a machine to remove the tyres and balance. Paint is one of those things where you really need the equipment to get the finish as well.

For the sake of £300 (minus the £100 in gear you would have spent for a rattle can job) it just isn't worth it.

100 quid seems a bit much, everything to do mine cost £35. I guess the proof of if they are any good or not will come with time. Worst case scenario they go bad and I end up £35 out of pocket and get them done properly. On the other side, if all goes well and they are hard wearing, I save myself a few hundred quid, enjoyed myself doing so and learned that spraying stuff isn't as easy as it looks.

Either way I am happy.

 

[Vince]

Well I laid down the clear today. looks pretty good but i will have to keep you all waiting as my phone is out of battery so no pictures until I have charged it. Car also got a massive bunch of presents. All new cooling system including radiators, uprated water pump and thermostat. All new air con system, and all the service parts, fuel filter etc. Some pics in the "what have you done to your car today thread.

All I need to do now is re-assemble.

 

[Vince]

DIY'd my track wheels on my 182 a few months ago, they looked great.
First track day the lacquer melted and all the brake dust got stuck in the lacquer.
Needless to say I'm getting them powder coated next.

Ouch, I don't imagine these will go back on the car for another few weeks. So plenty of time for them to harden. The laquer on my wheels is dry to the touch already and i only sprayed them a few hours back. As soon as i have enough battery for flash I will get some pics.

 

[Vince]

So I promised a few pictures of the wheels once I had put down the clear coat and today with the decent weather, I decided I would work on the car. The wheel is not perfect but it is so much better than it was I still need to take the clear coat back with some p2000 and polish it to bring out the shine:

The method I used was to mask up, give it a quick dust over with with silver again and then wait 15 mins and lay down a dust layer of clear, wait another 10 mins and then lay over a thicker clear followed by another thinner coat after another 10 mins or so.

Here is the wheel outside once painted:



And the wheel out of its masking and back indoors: