Stripped, filled and sprayed alloy wheels get damaged by nuts

gelk1984

gelk1984

gelk1984

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United kingdom
So I’ve been refurbing my alloys as they’re pretty bad, so far I’ve done 2. Totally stripped, filled, sanded, primed, painted and lacquered them and they look great.

However when I come to put them back on the car, especially the locking nut scratches the paint back off in a small area and it’s extremely irritating after all that work. The whole point in lacquer is to protect the paint is it not?

I left the paint 24 hours to dry and I also left the lacquer 24 hours, 4 coats of each 15 mins apart and it still happens. It seems like even 24 hours isn’t enough for the lacquer to properly harden.

Unless I’m missing something but isn’t this how it’s generally done?
 
use a thinner socket or preffered a dedicated alloy wheel socket. if you are then it seems either the nuts/bolts are wrong or the wheels are.
i refurbished shedloads in the past and never had this problem, always had to mask the seat the nut fits onto on the wheel otherwise the wheel could come loose.
maybe a picture would help?

biggest problem ive had is usually finding them curbed again shortly after.............the joys of her who must be obeyed:)
 
gc123 said:
use a thinner socket or preffered a dedicated alloy wheel socket. if you are then it seems either the nuts/bolts are wrong or the wheels are.
i refurbished shedloads in the past and never had this problem, always had to mask the seat the nut fits onto on the wheel otherwise the wheel could come loose.
maybe a picture would help?

biggest problem ive had is usually finding them curbed again shortly after.............the joys of her who must be obeyed:)
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The socket is the one that came with the car, when I put the normal ones on they are fine but the locking nut one is fatter than the rest. The nuts are the same on every wheel.

Actually looking online it looks like the locking nuts aren’t even the right ones for the car the ones I seen to buy are thinner as you say

Photos…it won’t let me upload photos?
 
Have you been doing it during the current heatwave? Counter-intuitively, too-high ambient temperatures can make the paint take even longer to cure than normal, possibly even making it near-impossible to cure properly.
 
paradigm said:
Have you been doing it during the current heatwave? Counter-intuitively, too-high ambient temperatures can make the paint take even longer to cure than normal, possibly even making it near-impossible to cure properly.
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I didn’t realise heat would stop it curing properly, looking at the previous wheel that one seems good now after a week so you’re probably right. I’ve also ordered the proper size locking nuts they def are too big and not the correct ones
 
Though I'm not sure it is your problem here, in general that kind of process can take longer than 24 hours to cure properly in my experience - one of the things I found when initially dabbling with touching up cosmetic issues on various areas on cars was that it would look amazing initially then 48-72 hours later when it had properly cured it came up looking not so good :(
 
Rroff said:
Though I'm not sure it is your problem here, in general that kind of process can take longer than 24 hours to cure properly in my experience - one of the things I found when initially dabbling with touching up cosmetic issues on various areas on cars was that it would look amazing initially then 48-72 hours later when it had properly cured it came up looking not so good :(
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I think you’re right and mixed with the hot weather as someone else mentioned and then with the locking nut being the wrong size, as in it’s bulky where the actual Jaguar one isn’t has caused the scratch. I’ve ordered some proper jag ones but now going to have to work out how to fix the small area without spraying the entire wheel again ☹️ you wouldn’t believe how bad the wheels were from the previous owner it was absolute madness what they did to them
 
yeah use a socket with the rubber around it... Ive got those as it does my head in people who use normal ones and it scratches all the inside of the alloy holes, use these...

81rs6LeieJL._AC_SL1500_.jpg
 
Not seen those rubber ones before. Will have to get myself a set :)

I’ve personally done away with lock bolts on all my cars and I just have normal bolts instead. I just don’t have wheels that anyone is going to be that interested in stealing luckily.
 
Phemo said:
Not seen those rubber ones before. Will have to get myself a set :)

I’ve personally done away with lock bolts on all my cars and I just have normal bolts instead. I just don’t have wheels that anyone is going to be that interested in stealing luckily.
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To be fair I’ve never had anyone try to steal any wheels nor do I know anyone who has either so probably don’t even need them, the amount of effort stealing wheels is crazy
 
Yeah, it might be different if I had something with some rare and expensive 19" or 20" alloys, but for cars with normal common wheels I'll take the risk. Especially after having this happen to my wife's car last year:

IMG-3719.jpg


That was the reason I vowed to remove lock bolts from any car I get in future :)
 
gelk1984 said:
Those are sick! So how does that work with the locking nut? Wouldn’t I need a specific one? Also where can I get these?
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You can get them anywhere. My Halfords mechanics set has rubber coated ones specifically so they don't scratch the alloys. As for the locking nut, what I did was put rubber insution tape around it so when I put it in it doesn't sratch, easy. You can do that with your normal sockets if you don't want to pay out.
 
pugheaven said:
You can get them anywhere. My Halfords mechanics set has rubber coated ones specifically so they don't scratch the alloys. As for the locking nut, what I did was put rubber insution tape around it so when I put it in it doesn't sratch, easy. You can do that with your normal sockets if you don't want to pay out.
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That’s a good idea, I’ve ordered smaller locking nuts, the proper Jaguar ones not these weird massive things that barely fit
 
Another option could be some of that self amalgamating rubber tape. That would wrap nicely around the sockets and is useful stuff for all sorts of things.
 
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