Original Wheels - How to restore?
 

:confused:
Ok, I have these wheels on the car now, they are original Mazda 13's but they are WHITE, and the paint is starting to show its age -

http://images.cardomain.com/member_i.../416364_10.jpg

I would LOVE to get them like thishttp://images.cardomain.com/member_i...9/416364_9.jpg
Anyone have any knowledge of Sandblasting, or any other methods for me to restore my wheels to this awesome Chrome look? Just wondering if white was an original option or if anyone had already done this. .
Tar. .
Craig:)
PS - hope ya dont mind me borrowing a pic of your wheels twig! Thats what I want!
PPS - Am I the only one NOT seeing peoples sig. pics??

Aluminum oxide blasting will remove the paint and leave a satin finish. From there, buff, paint the gray back in then clear coat I guess.

Ah, Cool, who normally does Aluminum oxide blasting ? Painters?

I guess you could hit up a paint shop. They may have a better media than al oxide, like glassbead should work well too.

82transam did a nice restoration of a set of those wheels, you could try talking to him about how he did them, but he doesnt seem to be online much anymore.

I think he said he sandblasted them, repainted the black, polished the aluminum or something, then clearcoated them. I dont remember exactly what he did though, sorry :(.

~T.J.

Thanks guys, yeah, actually now that you mention it TJ, Sandblasting is fairly common here in Aus, might look into that~!

I am going to clean up a set of mine.

I am going to Blast them clean.
paint the black back in and then clear coat them.
you could also use a good metal polish on them and just redo it when they start looking bad.

I kinda like the look of them restored with the black painted in, but polished to a mirror finish then clearcoated. I think thats what Im going to do to mine eventually, if I dont just get new rims before then.

~T.J.

Does any one else have WHITE ones or any other colour though?

I did a set on my 323. HARD work.

I used paint stripper to get off the clear coat, then started with 80 grit sandpaper, all the way up to 1000 grit. Then used metal polish. they look pretty good, and I am going to do the wheels on the RX this winter, but man it IS hard work.

Like Feds said, cleaning them up is going to be hard work. I was thinking about doing a set of mine, using a strong paint stripper, etc, like Feds described, but I have also heard from others that this is alot of work. You might look around for another set in good condition, they are fairly common (even free sometimes) - I found a real nice original set with the clear coat still in good shape for $100, complete with some usable tread. Let's see, if I paid myself $10/hour for ten hours, I would have spent that doing some less than pleasant work, so it was probably worth it.
Ray

I refinished a set of Rally II's for an old Firebird. You can buy a set of adhesive stencils for the dark gray portion of the wheel...

Does anyone make a similar stencil for the Mazda wheel? If not, there's a free idea for someone to create and sell... :D

I used that same method on mine. Took forever but it was worth it. to paint the stripes all I did was took a can of black gloss spray paint and sprayed the entire wheel, rims and all. I didn't bother masking it. All I did was when I was finished, I just took a rag and some carb cleaner and wiped off the extra overspray.
I have a picture of the wheel on my cardomain page. links in my sig......

Wheres your sig? ;).

~T.J.

click on the little profile button at the bottom of the post, then click the link.

oops I thought I made sig..........I feel stupid as shit

Sorry if this is a repost, dont have time to read all those, but to resotre them what you want to do is get a mild abrasive paint thiner/remover. Put that on and scrub it with a rag real good until its all off. The moment it is all off wash them with water to get any extra abrasive off. Then repaint the color u want, or put on some aluminum polish, and then clearcoat. Im planning on doing it this winter, my friend repairs old rims and showed me how to do it.

With regard to the paint stripper - I'm assuming it removes the darker groove paint along with the clear coat? Exactly what needs to be sanded? Is this just to work curb rash, etc.?

No, the whole wheel needs to be sanded to re-texture, and to make paint or clear coat stick.

~T.J.

.... please forgive the questions...

When you use the paint stripper, what does the wheel look like afterwards? Does it completely damage the polished finish and remove the dark paint in the grooves, or is it just removing the clear coat and leaving a fairly clean finished wheel beneath, sans the clearcoat?

My clearcoat is a little screwy and I'm planning on taking on this task...

It's kinda hard to tell in that pic, but depending on the condition of the metal you could just strip that paint off with chemicals, give it a quick polish, paint and be on your way. You only need to glass bead blast (not sand, sand will pit the fuck out of it, ask me how I know) if there is heavy corrosion etc. One last tip is to use a GOOD clear coat, dont be a dumbass and use wood clearcoat you found in the garage. Its flaking like you woulnt belive, my wheels looked awesome this time last year when I restoed them, but now they look like shit. Oh well, thats where the LE wheels come in...
RMD: sorry I haven't been online too much latlely, 30 hours a week at work and 6 classes at collage has taken most of my time. oye.

sandind is usually only required when your rims have those rough spots where they got ate away by something, the little rough spots. Othe rhtan that scuff it up a little and throw it on is wat my friend always does and they look good, he usualyl doesnt paint them thou. Polish then with aluminum polish to get a rela nice shine then clearcoat

Supposedly Eastwood sells a clearcoat for wheels that doesnt yellow/flake/peel.

Hiya 82transam and thanks! - Ok, firstly the reason I wanna blast em, or whatever is cause they be WHITE, and the white has been painted over a few times and looks SHIT, compared to how good they look, Chromed or Aluminium with the black inserts, I just want that look. So will simple paint stripper get the paint off? Do you know if these wheels actually did come out white or do you think someone has simply PAINTED 'em? Everyone talks about "clear coat" - obviously, that would be stuff for metal, exterior, etc. . . .
The actual condition of the wheels is fine, just the paint is crap. When you say, remove with chemicals then a quick paint. . . you mean paint the black bits? What happens to what's UNDER the white?
Sorry to be such a dumbass - but I have no clue - I'd hate to stuff 'em up!

Craig.
:cool:

... that's my question, too. Will paint stripper remove the clear coat, without damaging the rim's surface?