Rim Repair, pics Options

[lagos]

I've had my rims for a long time now (too long). Over the years the brake dust started to eat away at the clear coat that was put over the polished lip. The wheels were starting to look terrible.

The white spots you see in these pics is the damaged clear.



I enlisted the help of 95st-celica to help bring them back to life.
First we began by removing the layer of clear. We used a sanding pad mounted to a drill. These are normally sold in most auto parts or hardware stores. Not sure what grit they are, but they work well for stripping paint. After that, we sanded with 400 grit, then 600/800 grit, and then 2000. Finally we applied a metal polishing compound to them, and buffed off with a buffing pad mounted to a drill.

Here are the finished results...




Huge thanks goes out to Joe. I couldn't have done it without your help, bro!

This post has been edited by lagos: Aug 25, 2008 - 12:43 PM

[CelicaST_CALI]

nice rim job 95st-celica!!!!

[Batman722]

looks great Ast, I'll be doing mine soon too after I'm done messing with things this weekend.

Just make sure you do the "keep up" with them and buff them out every 3-6 months.

BTW, vroom vroom

[Fastbird]

Nice job on the Refinish Art!!! Looks really good. Just stay on top of keeping them clean and you shouldn't have any more trouble.

[lagos]

Yeah from what I've read, people recommend that you either spray some clear on them, or put on a coat of wax to help protect them from any kind of oxidation. I think I'm going to go with the wax. That way if they ever get damaged again, I can just sand them lightly with 2000 grit to get the shine back, without having to put all this work into them again.

I wish I took some during pics, because we really did strip them down to rough metal, and then brought them back up to the smooth shine you see. It took a lot of effort, but things were rolling faster once we settled on what steps to take in what order.

This post has been edited by lagos: Aug 25, 2008 - 12:42 AM

[95st-celica]

they turned out great man....10x better then what they looked like before....the pad on the drill was like a soft 80 gritt...stripped it right down to the metal and gave it kind of like a machined look to it...then the 400 to 600 and finally 2000 to get all the rough looking scratches out....they were glistening in the street lights tonight....

[97Celica]

I gotta do this to a pair...is there any way to clear coat the metal?

This post has been edited by 97Celica: Aug 25, 2008 - 1:20 AM

[lagos]

I gotta do this to a pair...is there any way to clear coat the metal?

Yeah, buy a can of high temp clear coat spray paint.