wheel repair/refinishing
- Thread starter daturbosix
- Start date
thanks, i called them.
seem like they have a flat rate of $129 for any aluminum wheel..
so far theyre the best price.
ive never done a wheel. if you want to take a spare that i have and try it, let me know. if it turns out good, id gladly pay you for your time to refinish them.
Doing them isn't hard. Are these the GTA lace wheels?
I did a set of Fiero wheels before. They were originally a smoke gray and I did them in black (See pic below for finished look)
I stripped the original paint off with permatex spray-on gasket remover.
I then wet sanded the lip with 280 grit, then 400 grit, then 600 grit, then 2000 grit. Finally I polished the lip with Mother's aluminum polish. The lip came out to a chrome looking mirror finish. If you look closely at the lip on your wheels, you will see tooling lines from when they cut the wheels, The wet-sanding removes these small tooling lines.
The inside rear part of the wheel is sanded and lightly polished. Not quite mirror finish like the lip.
I then primed and painted the center with black urethane paint.
If you want I can do the spare and you can see what they look like.
The only other question is will these be summer only or all year round wheels?
If used year round I would suggest doing a clear urethane coating over the entire wheel to protect them. It does dull the mirror finish slightly. If these would be summer only wheels, I could leave off the clearcoat leaving the lip look like a mirror finish. A good waxing is enough to keep them shiny and protected.
Price wise, It'll run about $80 for the materials and I would charge $50 per wheel for labor. So about $280 for 4 wheels.
I just checked out the Wheel's America website. You may want to take note of this statement:
We use computer controlled machines to ensure accuracy and the correct surface finish, including the fine lines found in machined wheels.
They leave the tooling lines in the finish which will give you a polished look, But not a mirror finish. So it depends on what you want.
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Nope, All of it was done by hand.
Since I start with a 280 grit and work down to the 2000 grit, it really doesn't take too long.
No I haven't. I have only done a few stock wheels.
I've done a Fiero wheel like above and I have also done a set of the typical 80's Pontiac wheels where I stripped the clearcoat and then sanded/polished the surface with a mirror finish and painted the insides of the cut-outs.
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