How to go about DIY restoring heavily corroded alloy wheels?

Akagi

Akagi

Akagi

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Any pointers on tools or methods which work best? I have flap wheels and wire wheels and flappy pads and various sandpapers etc. Worth buying any kind of acidic products to spray on or..?

I don't want them perfect by any means, I just want to scrub them up and rattle can them silver so they look presentable.

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These are 4x110 JDM Daihatsu 13" alloys. Impossible to find in the UK but these came up randomly for £35. Perfect. :p
 
Honestly, for how much it’ll cost in product (paint stripper, prepwork, sand paper, primer, paint, lacquer, etc) just pay the extra to get them cheaply sandblasted and powder coated.

You can get all four done for not that much.
 
I have all those things already and I feel I would benefit from giving it a go :)

A refurb even of 13" wheels in basic silver is still going to be over £100.
 
As above. A good refurb, and opt for painting them lacquer. Not just lacquer, as that's the reason a simple stone chip or replacing a tyre can start to degrade the alloy.
 
Thanks but, with all due respect, I didn't ask if you think I should just pay to have them refurbished. :p ;)
 
Acme said:
Thanks but, with all due respect, I didn't ask if you think I should just pay to have them refurbished. :p ;)
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I know.
My point being is that even if you scrap as smooth as you possibly can, plus painting and lacquer, that won't last a month. And even if not too much spent, will be wasted.
How to you plan to get rid of the humidity already in the alloy and damage not visible?
As you mentioned, unavailable in the UK, so as a not so dumb person, I assumed it was worthy the refurb.
 
Yeah see, I'm not paying £200 to have my £35 wheels re-furbished to put on my £250 car... However I don't mind spending some of my time to do it with products and equipment which I already have.

I will wait for further input, or perhaps post the question elsewhere.
 
I tried this once.

Prep was by far the worst part because the recesses are a pain in the ass to sand. To paint them I used Acid etch primer, and some satin black rattle cans I got from home bargains for a quid. It only cost me about 20 quid in total. Looked decent for the few years i had them (if you like black wheels).

I'd never do it again though! Too much time and effort required.
 
Thats more like it. I will do the same thing but with silver paint not black.

The painting is easy, as you say the prep is the hardest part, and it is mainly that which I am asking about. :)

i think my small flap wheels will probably make the job a lot easier.
 
I dont see why this wouldnt work personally.

I dont think there is any particular special technique, just use whatever you have, wire wheel drill attachment or whatever you have, take it down to metal. What paint do you have?

If you are going to rattle can, get something hardwaring. Use lots of thin coats rather than thicker coats. Spray lacquer, same ruitine. Worth a go.

OK it wont last as long as getting them professionally powder coated but it'll be fine fo ra good while. I have done lots of paint jobs like this on various motorcycles that have been fine for years. Infact I resprayed the forks on my SV650 many years ago, and that area of the bike is subject to stone chips, and they are still fine today.
 
Acme said:
The painting is easy, as you say the prep is the hardest part, and it is mainly that which I am asking about. :)
i think my small flap wheels will probably make the job a lot easier.
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Yeah get different shapes, the pointier head ones are good for corners. It will take a long time to do all 4, I would imagine most of a day. I recenly did a 15kg butane gas bottle (dont ask) and that took hours, which is much less surface area and flatter than those wheels.
 
I did this some years ago, nitromors to remove the paint, light sanding (by hand) then used Holts alloy wheel paint. Cost about £15 for all 4. Lasted a couple of years and were fine.
They were toyota wheels, the ones that have the diamond cut front originally (off a celica)
 
Having just gone through some manual refurb of stripping to bare metal and repainting car bits and polishing wheels I can thoroughly recommend spending £40 per wheel for some one else to do the hard work :D

Else pressure wash as much off as you can, nitromors, wash off, more nitromors, pressure wash, even more nitromors as you realise its pap having spent a day researching a more efficient way to do this to no avail, sand the real stubbon bits, more sanding with finer grit sandpaper, then spray - easy

apparently dichloromethane is the stuff you want, I do have some but never got round to using it in the end.
 
I've done this before and I won't do it again.

£80 to City Wheel Refurbishment and pick them up in a week.
 
Too far gone to sand or tart up. These are heavily corroded. The aluminium alloy is softer than the hard whitish oxide. It will be nigh on impossible to get a smoother surface and when you paint it - it will look like every imperfection is highlighted.
I think you would have to hire a sand blaster or pressure washer with sand attachment. I have tied this kind of thing before and it just causes misery and regret you ever started. I have repainted wheels in good condition with just spot corrosion and small kerbing scraped (filled with bodyfiller) and that was OK.
 
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