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Targa Wheels

Gatekeeper

Silverstone
Joined
21 Jun 2003
Messages
100
I'm such a perfectionist that I like things to look just right and have therefore turned my attentions to the many nuts and bolts, which hold the 993 Targa wheels together.

Owing to years of exposure to the elements these bolt heads have become a mixture of corrosion and flaky black paint. Therefore I'd love to remove a few at a time and repaint them black (think there's a song somewhere here!)

Obviously I'll be selective about which ones I remove and how many, since I don't want the wheels to fall apart and I know that's its going to take me ages, but well its winter so the car doesn't come out much.

My question is; Does anyone have any opinions on if this is a good thing to do or not....from a safety perspective of course. I'll obviously torque them up and thread lock them, but is this type of thing a big no no? I know some people will say that playing with the wheels in this way is not advisable, but then I'm sure we've all taken the wheels off our cars in the past without any issues and there's only 5 of those bolts.

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Migration info. Legacy thread was 12666
 
I think the theory is that you should never re-use the bolts holding together a three piece wheel. I have seen them shear on a badly refurbed wheel (fortunately on a track and not on the road - could be very messy). If in doubt this is a job for a specialist - at the very least you need to know what the exact torque setting should be - if you torque it up wrong then the tyre will never hold air ! There was an article in 911&Porsche World sometime last year that dealt with this whole issue - can't remember the month I'm afraid, try contacting the publishers ???

Jamie


Migration info. Legacy thread was 12686
 
Gatekeeper,

Are you talking about the five wheel bolts or the sixty or so wheel rim bolts (that are alloy)? As you talk about the black bolts I presume you mean the wheel bolts that physically hold the wheel to the hub. You can remove these and paint the bolts, but only if you are not going to be using the car. If you are a perfectionist, you might want to buy a new set and save yourself the hassle of painting them. Make sure the wheel is unloaded when you remove the bolts (ie car supported on axle stands). Without stating the bleeding obvious, under no circumstances should you drive a car (any car) with a wheel bolt missing as the torque generated from use will loosen the others bolts and turn you into a reliant robin usually with dire/ expensive consequences.

As Jamie mentions, you shoudn't miss split rims - leave that to a professional.

One last thing, Porsche handbook states to put the locking bolt opposite the tyre valve for optimum wheel balance.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 12687
 
Cheers for the advice so far.

Yes its the many bolts which hold the split rims together which I'm interested in repainting. I've already repainted the 5 main bolts :)
and they look lovely!

Interesting point about the locking security bolt needing to be opposite the valve. I'm sure mine will be in the wrong place, but I'm make sure I correct it this weekend.


Migration info. Legacy thread was 12688
 
There is an article in 911 & Porsche Number 114 September 2003 which gives details for overhauling split rims and also some contacts. You may find it useful.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 12726
 
For those that are interested, I ditched the idea about removing the bolts and respraying them individually. Instead went for the good old masking tape approach and masked the wheels up so that just the bolts were showing. It was quite fiddly and took around 90 minutes for the first, but I've got it down to an hour per wheel now.

Quite happy with the final finish. better than the mixture of black, brown and grey bolts before

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Migration info. Legacy thread was 12843
 

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