From factory painted wheels to Polished Aluminum

[Distephano]

Hrm... I must have missed that thread...

Now that you mention it, I think I do remember him saying that he gave up on his wheels. Dang it

[fantomfreke]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Distephano:

fantomfreke:

If you could just post a list of what you used and how you did it, on here, that'd be great. That way everyone could learn from ya, not just me [img]smile.gif[/img] <hr></blockquote>

the clear coat on the stock wheels is almost impossible to crack. you could try aircraft stripper, and it does do a great job on the clear coat but makes the paint underneath so goey you can barely do anything with so unless you want to spend a fortune on stripper dont bother. also while i was doing my wheels on of the "good ole boys" from next door swore up and down that he used to strip wheels and engine block using easy off. dont do it.

life will be much easier if you have a compressor. if not buy lots of sand paper get a bucket of water and go to town.

if you do have a compressor, get a flapper wheel

its basically a piece of brillo pad and a piece of sand paper repeated to make a wheel. you can get these in different grits and find them at wally world.

your also going to want to go to sears and get some cloth buffing wheels and some buffing compounds.




the white stuff is what you'll use the most of. dont even worry with the black, and the others are almost as useless.

now that you have the gear start in. use the roughest flapper wheel you have (carefull that it doesn't make too deep of scratches.) to start stripping the paint. be careful of the metal head on the disk as you will score the crap out of the wheels with it.
and its basically just repitition. clear the paint. changes to finer grit and sand the scratches out. change grit sand the finer scratches out. thats when you need to go to sand paper and work your way throught the grit ranges. i started with 400 and worked my way up to 2000. when done and the wheel is starting to look somewhat shiny, clean rim, take buffer wheel with white compound and start buffing. hold compound bar on buffer wheel to get compound on it then buff, and buff and yall get the point. to finish i used wenol

even doing all that the wheels were not perfect. they stock wheels are rough cast with tons of pits and porous areas.

one more thing to get around the lip of the wheel i used a dremel and some kratex bullets. kratex is a rubberized abrasive and replaceable (unlike the cylinders for a dremel. to get them call your local industrial supply shop and im sure they'll hook you up. be foreworned i used and entire box on just 2 wheels.

hope this helps

[Chris]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Distephano:

Anyways, winter is knocking on the door around here, and the car is in storage, and I've got some free time. I'm looking into picking up one wheel to practice on first.

Did you ever finish these DV?

I'm not even sure if you're still around<hr></blockquote>

check your email.