Stripped, filled and sprayed alloy wheels get damaged by nuts

[gelk1984]

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?

 

[gelk1984]

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

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?

 

[gelk1984]

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.

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

 

[gelk1984]

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

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

 

[gelk1984]

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...

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?

 

[gelk1984]

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.

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

 

[gelk1984]

Mcgard oem locking wheel nuts they are absolute fail had the same happen on a focus i used to have, as to the op what type of paint did you use? non-iso?

This is the paint https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B08HZ5JSS9?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

This is the Lacquer: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B079R45V9L?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image

And I just used a standard metal primer

 

[gelk1984]

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.

That’s a good idea, I’ve ordered smaller locking nuts, the proper Jaguar ones not these weird massive things that barely fit

 

[gelk1984]

I removed my locking nuts months ago and put standard nut in their place. Nobody steals wheels anymore, they steel the front end of a car instead.

Back in the early 2000s I caught a guy in my car stealing the sound system, lucky I caught him in the act it was an expensive system

 

[gelk1984]

I had once, and I was close to wishing they had suceeded!

I had some rather tasty 17s on my celica (bear in mind this was mid 90s) which were 2 or 3 inches above the standard fit at the time. By 90s standards they were pretty large

Some scrote(s) tried to steal one of my wheels, managed to get the four non locking ones undone then of course found that the locking one wouldn't come off.

I found out the day after that they had tried as i called a mate to say something was up with my car and could he drop round.
I had been out all day at a paintball event I had organised, and it was basically dusk as I left, along with 30 people from work who decided to make progress as it was late.
During that it was clear to me something was up having a vibration that hadnt been there the day before. I would have noticed earlier but I was really early when I went in the morning and didnt go that quick as I wasnt familiar with the area.
I knew something wasnt quite right but put it down to the roads being ******.

IT turned out the next day the 4 no locking ones were finger tight so the wheel could wobble under load. Yikes!

That’s scary af man! Some people just don’t give a **** if they harm someone else do they?! Lucky the thing didn’t bend or snap