Restoring Wheels

[Starman417]

I'm about ready to tackle restoring my wheels.  Anyone done it and with what kind of success?  Any tips?

[resq302]

I am in the process of doing that right now.  To make it easier, and since I am replacing them with repro bias ply tires, I am dismounting the radial tires.  I am using a paint and rust stripper wheel-type that mounts into a drill or angle grinder chuck.  I first use aircraft stripper to remove all of the paint and then clean up the rest with that paint and rust stripper disc made by Black and Decker.  To paint it, I mask off the nickel area with blue painters tape and then just trim to the edges of the nickel area with an exacto knife.  One thing to take note on as I have had this happen in the past, the insert areas tend to flake off as the nickel plating got onto that area as well.  Be sure to use either a self etching primer or adhesion promoter so the paint will stick in that area.  I am also hitting the area where the tire bead is with the paint and rust stripper so  the new tires will have a nice smooth, flat area to seal up against and will hopefully not have any air leaks.

Krylon semi flat black (#1613) is almost a dead on match.

[Starman417]

Would love to see some before and after pic's.  I'm taking the tires off also since I also have some new repro bias ply's. 

[resq302]

Here are some pics of where I stripped down the rim.  Then masked it off where the nickel plating was.  Then the finished product on my car (minus a couple lug nuts and trim ring)

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

You mean you got new whitewalls on the car and didnt post pics? 

[resq302]

Chris, I have the pics on my computer at my apartment.  Unfortunatly, Cablevision has its line coming into my appt complex down for over the past month  :RantExplode:so I still have TV but no internet service.  I am in the process of switching over to DSL and DSL said that I would be up and running on 3/3 so it should be any day now. 

I do have pics though as there is only two wheels currently that have the white walls on it.  I promise as soon as all 4 tires have the white walls, pics will be posted.

Oh yeah, right now the car is not mobile either as the timing cover and water pump are both off due to oil and coolant leaks.  Soon grasshopper..... soon.

[HeavyFuel]

The local soda blaster has told me that he cleans up a lot of rims, and they come out really nice.  That would only leave the painting process to do, for those of us that are short on time.

[resq302]

If you blast the rim, be very careful that he does not remove the nickel plating on the spokes.  Otherwise, it would be time to have the entire rim renickeled as it appears that the factory nickel plated the center part and then welded the center part to the outer round part of the rim.