James Hunt
Suzuka
- Joined
- 26 Aug 2011
- Messages
- 1,113
Before I start I welcome comments from Chris W and the other PROFESSIONALS with regards to improving this process so I can do it better and better in the future.....
My 18" Turbo alloys having seen 15 years of action were in dire condition. Whole patches of paint on the insides peeling off due to paint corrosion on the insides and laquer flaking all over. Horrible, and made me bite my jaw everytime my OCD eyes had a look. Was going to give these to a pro to get them done but I have always been a dab hand with an airbrush and a can of aerosol so thought I would do it myself. Started by removing all 2 wheels at a time (all the mrs could bare to put up with in the lounge at a time). First step was to clean them to within an inch of their lives using bilt hamber, tardis, autoglym and poorboys cleaning products. It was then the true extent of the corrosion became apparent. I was doing this with just power tools with no access to any kind of blasting equipment (which would have saved a lot of elbow grease). This is what the corrosion looked like......
All of them were covered in patches like this. Horrible. Set about sanding the patches down to the alloy....
Once done and I was satisfied the holes and deep scratches got filled in and the alloys sanded down for a smooth and level finish....
Then they got cleaned to within an inch of their lives again once the filler had set. Next part was the spraying process.
Prep for spraying (my spray booth consisted of the family outhouse-far from a sterile enviroment!lol!)
I left the tyres on and made cards to protect them from overspray out of cardboard and even found a few I had from years ago. First on was the filler primer. I opted for U-Pol high build primer.....
After 3 coats of primer inside and out (forgot to take pics of the hubs being sprayed) it was time for 4 coats of Wurth German alloy wheel paint-the same stuff porsche use at the factory-as do mercedes/bmw etc etc....
Then 3 coats of Wurth Laquer.....
Allowed approx 20 mins between all coats, then left them to dry in the lounge for a few days while I did some other work.....
Stripped and repainted the centre caps...
And wheel nuts.....
Touched up (didn't need a refurb just stone chips in places) the calipers and applied fresh laquer to all of them.....
Painted the hubs on the discs using grey primer which is how they look when new, cleaned the wheel arch liners and dressed them with collinite and cleaned the arches and resprayed parts that needed it....
Alloys were nice and dry now after a few days so gave them a polish with menzerna and an orbital to hone the finish and waxed them using swissvax.
Then I did all this all over again on the other side! What a ballache, but worth it for the results. From start to finish took 5 days for all 4 alloys/arches/calipers etc etc. Hopefuly some of you can use this as an aide to doing it yourselves sometime. Really is a piece of p*ss, just takes time.
JAMES
:thumb:
My 18" Turbo alloys having seen 15 years of action were in dire condition. Whole patches of paint on the insides peeling off due to paint corrosion on the insides and laquer flaking all over. Horrible, and made me bite my jaw everytime my OCD eyes had a look. Was going to give these to a pro to get them done but I have always been a dab hand with an airbrush and a can of aerosol so thought I would do it myself. Started by removing all 2 wheels at a time (all the mrs could bare to put up with in the lounge at a time). First step was to clean them to within an inch of their lives using bilt hamber, tardis, autoglym and poorboys cleaning products. It was then the true extent of the corrosion became apparent. I was doing this with just power tools with no access to any kind of blasting equipment (which would have saved a lot of elbow grease). This is what the corrosion looked like......
All of them were covered in patches like this. Horrible. Set about sanding the patches down to the alloy....
Once done and I was satisfied the holes and deep scratches got filled in and the alloys sanded down for a smooth and level finish....
Then they got cleaned to within an inch of their lives again once the filler had set. Next part was the spraying process.
Prep for spraying (my spray booth consisted of the family outhouse-far from a sterile enviroment!lol!)
I left the tyres on and made cards to protect them from overspray out of cardboard and even found a few I had from years ago. First on was the filler primer. I opted for U-Pol high build primer.....
After 3 coats of primer inside and out (forgot to take pics of the hubs being sprayed) it was time for 4 coats of Wurth German alloy wheel paint-the same stuff porsche use at the factory-as do mercedes/bmw etc etc....
Then 3 coats of Wurth Laquer.....
Allowed approx 20 mins between all coats, then left them to dry in the lounge for a few days while I did some other work.....
Stripped and repainted the centre caps...
And wheel nuts.....
Touched up (didn't need a refurb just stone chips in places) the calipers and applied fresh laquer to all of them.....
Painted the hubs on the discs using grey primer which is how they look when new, cleaned the wheel arch liners and dressed them with collinite and cleaned the arches and resprayed parts that needed it....
Alloys were nice and dry now after a few days so gave them a polish with menzerna and an orbital to hone the finish and waxed them using swissvax.
Then I did all this all over again on the other side! What a ballache, but worth it for the results. From start to finish took 5 days for all 4 alloys/arches/calipers etc etc. Hopefuly some of you can use this as an aide to doing it yourselves sometime. Really is a piece of p*ss, just takes time.
JAMES
:thumb:
had me thinking as my 6 series is booked into bodyshop next week for 3 days to have all four wheels refurbed at £55/wheel.
