Farleytron

My GSL's old 4 spoke rims are lookin' kinda raggedy. The clearcoat is worn, yellowed, and the metal is pitted a bit.

Have any of you managed to renew the look of your old rims without professional intervention? I attempted to sand and wirebrush one of the rims, with mediocre results.

Any ideas?

Has anyone painted their rims in a way that doesn't look crappy?

Would re-clearcoating them after sanding/brushing look bad?

ChunkyMonkey

iTrader: (1)

I think clearcoating them again would help bring back some shine as long as you cleaned them pretty well.....For the pitting areas, try the Eagle One Never Dull. Worked great for my motorcycle wheels and pipes when they were pitting.

Farleytron

What is Never Dull? Is it an abrasive paste? Will it work on a grooved surface like on RX-7 rims?

Has anyone reading this actually re-clearcoated their stock rims?

DAVID GRIMES

If you have the ones I think you have, check out powder coating. You'd be surprised a the price and how the metal colors look like ... well... metal. 35 bucks each around here and will last and last.

Rx7carl

The aluminum is too soft to wirebrush or sand. Strip the clear off with a paint remover and go from there. I clearcoated mine with a rattlecan wheel clear from the auto parts store and its held up well so far. About 3 months. I blasted my rims and ruined the shiny finish though. Once you get the clear off, a metal polish would make them shiny like chrome. I'll get my next set right after learning this.

82transam

iTrader: (18)

I'm in the middle of doing a set of the stock 12a wheels. I'm using fine sandpaper and while it leaves minor scratches its looking pretty decent. After sanding them smooth I'm just using rustolium "crystal clear enamel" or whatever its called. The pic I've attached is of the 2 i've completed so far. They were in the usual bad condition, yellow, pitted, etc, so I won't bother posting a before shot unless someone really wants one. Oh and I know I could get these rims a lot shinier if I polished them up more, but i just want to clean up the look a little, and this is fine for my needs.

IanS

iTrader: (4)

Those wheels look good. Cleaning mine is gonna be the next project. I just need to figure out what color to paint them (go over black with new color). I really need to figure out what color I am gonna paint my car. But, back to the wheels. I would definately use a paint stripper, use a good metal polish and the re-clear.

RRTEC

iTrader: (13)

I did a set a few years back, I stipped with paint remover, polished the lip then painted the entire center black leaving the rim only shiny polished aluminum... it looked like this but 20x better, this is a set i did without polishing..

IanS

iTrader: (4)

oh yeah, that is nice. I was thinking about doing them "negative". Like where silver is do black and vice-versa.

Farleytron

I think metal polish would not work well with all the grooves in the metal, unless the rim was machine sanded smooth first.

I am just going to strip, sand, and clearcoat. I am not looking for perfection either.

Thanks guys!

Those rims looks good, '82. That's what I am shooting for.

Rx7carl

Metal polish will work great, even with the grooves. Trust me. I put the car on jsckstands, bolted on the wheel, put her in gear, put the cloth with polish up against the rim and let the car do the work.

Felgar

I would recommend the POR-15 wheel restoration kit; though I have not used it personally. I even ordered parts of it once but it got lost on the bus down from a neighbouring city where I ordered it from. LOL

When I finally get around to doing my wheels that's what I'll be using. It comes with clear-coat stripper as well as numerous polishing compounds. The goal for me is to get the wheels as close as they can be to what they were new, as if they were never clear-coated. I like the clean and non-polished aluminum look and apparently you can accomplish that by stopping on one of their more abbrasive polishes.

DriveFast7

iTrader: (1)

This wheel refinishing has been done before with excellent results. Nice job transam!

A long time ago before rx7club.com a guy did a writeup. He used 1000 and 2000 grit sandpaper and wet sanded the rims real good. Wheel clearcoat. Came out looking like new and little to no scratches.

82transam

iTrader: (18)

thanks for the compliments guys Like most of you I just want to clean them up a bit cause the paint on my car is still pretty decent so those old yellowed rims make the car look shitty. I probably should be taking it down to 1000 grit, but I'm pretty happy with what I did.
I purposly did the 2 worst rims first (so if i fucked them up royally it would be no big loss) so i'll post pics of the other 2 better ones once i do them. Hopefully soon cause I wanna mount tires this sunday morning at work (gas station) I'll post pics as soon as I can
Sean

Brianhsval

Two words: Blue Magic. I kept my tanks and wheels like a mirror with that stuff on my Peterbuilt, and Freightliner. Neverdull isn't worth a chit.

one320fc

from my experience having to polish nozzles for rocket motors at work. The red scotch brite work really good. Its nice if you can get the wheels to spin and do the work for you!!