Alloy Wheel Reconditioning

Owen

Trying to catch up on things, and I promised at one stage, I'd show how to do a bumper corner, and refurb a wheel. Still haven't taken enough photos for a bumper corner, but here's a wheel I did today in the freezing cold, it's off a 2007 Corsa, and needed to be completely refurbished. Few things about the refurb which aren't covered in the photos.

I use a very very very fast drying primer which has filling, flexing AND etch properties. It's very expensive, it's called Novafill and is in aerosol form at about 30 Euro per 500ml aerosol from Innovation Ireland. If you don't want to buy that, then buy yourself a can of any Etch primer (As you're painting on metal, you need the acid etch to eat into the wheel surface to get a good grip), and wait for it to dry properly.

You will need minimum 120 grit paper, 400 paper, 800 wet and dry paper, plenty of masking tape, some anti-sil, and a scotchpad.

I paint with waterbased paint, and a 2 pack rapid drying lacquer. When painting with waterbased paint, you can dry it with compressed air (Slow), or with a Heat Gun (Very fast, but can blister and burn the paint if you don't know what you're doing). I spray mine with a turbine, and a HVLP gun. The turbine and HVLP gun is much more efficient at applying paint than a standard gun, and overspray is kept to a minimum. I can repaint an entire wheel using about 0.05 of a litre of paint, compared to a traditional compressor & gun setup. If you want to get into doing these for yourself, you can be lucky and pickup entry level turbine & guns sets on ebay for a few hundred Euro.

Here's the original wheel. You can see the extent of the gouges, it's not a pretty picture.




Here's the wheel after I sanded out the roughest areas with some 120 grit paper (120 is plenty for removing paint, you can go crazy and use 80, but 120 leaves a better finish for working with later).



I did notice while sanding, than instead of going down through Paint and Primer to the Metal, that there was also a layer of filler. Someone had had a pretty bad go at repairing these before. Turns out, it was the local Opel main dealer themselves. You can see the filler in the following photo, it's a yellow-ish texture.



Next up was to mix some of my own filler. After sanding back as far as I was happy with, there was still gouges down into the metal which needed to be taken care of. Using Ed China's old recipe, a golf ball of filler to a pea of hardener (The hardener is the red stuff, don't mind that it's all over the onion board, I was squeezing the last out of a tube). Mix this well until there's no streaks at all in the filler, and apply a thin coat, no point in putting big blobs of filler down onto the wheel, as you'll only be giving yourself more to sand back later again.



After waiting for the filler to dry, I sanded everything flat with more 120, then made it smooth using a 400 grade paper. After that, I sprayed on some primer using an aerosol, and dried the primer using my heatgun. Once it was dry, I used some soapy water, and some 800 wet and dry paper to sand everything as smooth as glass.

I dried that off with some rags, and then got the scotchpad, and some anti-sil. Anti-Sil is a chemical which removes Silicone (From tire dressings, etc) off the wheel, and it will also break down road tar and other contaminants. I put some into the scotchpad, and then scour the entire wheel with pad, which removes impurities, but also keys the surface of any areas I didn't prime to take paint and lacquer.

I dried off any excess Anti-sil with another clean rag, and then used the heatgun to dry the remainder. This leaves a white residue, which you then wipe clean using ... yet another clean rag. Now you're nearly ready for paint. I masked up the tire, and the valve stem, making sure to use an airline/compressed air source to blow out any water hidden in the gap between the wheel/tire, or in the wheel lugnut holes. Ideally, you'd love to take the tire off, but that's not practical at home, or at a roadside repair.

I mixed up the correct colour, poured it into my gun, and applied 3 coats to cover up any small imperfections which may have resulted from the sanding process. Here's the wheel after being masked, and covered in the silver metallic basecoat. I dried the basecoat with a heatgun as mentioned earlier.

Owen

And all my pictures are sideways. Feck.

Anyway, last 2 steps. I mixed up some lacquer using a 2:1 ratio of lacquer to hardener. The lacquer I use is specifically formulated to dry in about 15 minutes under infrared light. I poured this into a separate HVLP gun from the basecoat gun that has a larger needle to cope with the thicker lacquer fluid, and sprayed on a good thick layer all around the wheel, starting with the small openings in the spokes, the lug nut holes, working my way into the large openings in the spokes, before finally giving the top a good thick coat at the end.

It then went straight under the infrared lamp to cure.



And about 15 minutes later, demasked, and back on the car.



I realise this isn't a perfect guide, and I didn't take nearly enough photos, but I'm happy to answer any additional questions anyone might have if they want to tackle it themselves.

Nforce

I've a tatty old set of alloys sitting in the garage that would benefit from a spruce up. Thanks for the diy guide.

Slidey

Good on ya PD, thanks for taking the effort to put this up...

MetzgerMeister

Excellent DIY! I refurbed a set of alloys a few years ago. They came out well but nothing like your job!

How much would you charge to do 4 x 18" alloys?

Ush1

Great walk through.

Just wondering what's the cheapest way to do a decent refurb at home? Best place to get paints, primers etc...without having to buy specific drying equipment etc...

Might give this a go.

MetzgerMeister

Ush1 wrote: »

Great walk through.

Just wondering what's the cheapest way to do a decent refurb at home? Best place to get paints, primers etc...without having to buy specific drying equipment etc...

Might give this a go.

The main things you need are patience to let the paint dry properly and the willpower to stop spraying between coats to stop runs



I say this from experience

pissed

Slightly off topic but my brother has a BMW with a hairline crack in one of his alloys. Any idea where to get this fixed at a reasonable price?

Living in Dublin by the way.

vectra

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I did 4 wheel for my 205gti and it was my first go at it, I was very happy with the results. I did it for very little money, I have the photos on my home PC.

Are they still on your PC or have you put a Tut together?? Might do something on the Civic wheels if straightforward..

vectra

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I still have them on my PC, I`ll stick them up tonight. Its not a perfect job but I was pleased.

Good man
Thanks

Hal1

The wheels turned out well and the sill. Did you follow paint doctors body repair instructions repairing the sill, or did you have a fair idea of what was involved already?

vectra

Did you use Spray gun or aerosol for the wheels??

Owen

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Paintdoctor please dont laugh at my feeble attempts

Seriously, that's not bad at all for a DIY Job!! Anyway, I'm too afraid to laugh, if I ever make it up to Mondello, you'd be breaking your hole laughing at me as a result

Tefral

Tip for the aerosol cans is to put them in a basin of warm water while your sanding. When your spraying then the paint is extra sticky and stops runs.
Drys real fast too

Captain Slow IRL

Is there any sort of aerosol lacquer that can give a decent finish for something like this?

Seth Brundle

I did a job on mine a few years ago.
Here are pics of the first wheel which despite the photos worked out very well.
I used Wurth paint and laquer.







The edges could have been better but it was fine for a first timer!

mickdw

One question about doing wheels. Where filler is needed around the edge to repair kerb rash etc, is there any special filler required to withstand the abuse of tyre fitting machines in future?

Owen

Depends on the severity of the damage, if it's light chipping and the majority of the metal remains, normal filler will do. If it's really badly kerbed, a metal putty filler is a much better option.

Tragedy

Eoin, is it viable to do this using just aerosols for primer, paint and lacquer and to let the filler and paint coats air dry? Mine badly need a refurb.

Owen

The filler (Because of the hardener) will go off on its own no problem. I use the lamp to speed up the process, but it'll go off on its own after between 20-40 minutes depending on ambient temp.

It's definitely possible to do it using rattlecans and air drying, but obviously do it in an indoor environment/shed/garage to stop dust from the wind hitting it. If it's a garage floor, wet it so it keeps the dust down. The finish won't be as good as it would be from a gun, but because wheels aren't something people generally get down on their hands and knees to inspect the paintwork on, you'd probably be fine.

mickdw

Is there a good filler primer in a can available? I did this bike but really needed a proper filler primer

Owen

Nothing from an aerosol would really be suitable for that, to get that ready for paint unfortunately it's just a lot of elbow grease needed to try and sort out the differences in the heights of the various damaged areas, some kurust, a bit of filler, LOTS of sanding and shaping (Took me about 2.5 hours to do a wing yesterday, it was herselfs so I wasn't even getting paid, unless you count dinner as pay) to get it right, and then normal paint.

mickdw

Its finished and it was time consuming to say the least. Obviously the rusty areas needed work as you describe but for other areas, I found halfords filler primer to be useless.

Owen

Filler primer's a bit of a misleading name really. It fills in very light scratches that might be left from sanding with enough coats of it, but not large damage. The only thing that'll do that, is something like a high build 2 pack polyester primer - you'd nearly get 1/4 of an inch of that stuff on a panel if you sprayed it and let it dry a few times, but it's an extreme measure when filler is much more productive, and more durable over time.

mickdw

PaintDoctor wrote: »

Filler primer's a bit of a misleading name really. It fills in very light scratches that might be left from sanding with enough coats of it, but not large damage. The only thing that'll do that, is something like a high build 2 pack polyester primer - you'd nearly get 1/4 of an inch of that stuff on a panel if you sprayed it and let it dry a few times, but it's an extreme measure when filler is much more productive, and more durable over time.

Just comparing to a filler primer Ive seen bodyshop using which had a bit of body to it.

JJJJNR

They look great PD, do you think there is anyway I can do the same with these ?

56k beware ! (do people still use that)

Owen

Holy moly - there's some work in them! They're doable, but you'll be sanding quite a while

Seth Brundle

pfft - there's only five spokes in them yokes. Mine had fifteen!

Gregsor

Just doing the lip of the alloys and all need doing.

Thought i would getaway without the filler but the sandpaper is doing a good job but it's not enough to get down to the deeper marks.

Any more enlightenment on what filler to use brand wise etc,

Great thread,thanks

G.

irelandspurs

Bumping an old thread,
can i get alloys sandblasted,then do the painting myself,the alloys are ingrained with brake dust as i doubt they have ever been cleaned since going on,and paint is bubbling?

Owen

No reason why not, but the money you'd pay someone to sandblast them, you'd pay for someone to recondition them for a smidgen more.

irelandspurs

Owen wrote: »

No reason why not, but the money you'd pay someone to sandblast them, you'd pay for someone to recondition them for a smidgen more.

suppose so,i'm a paint and decorator myself am just being lazy and don't fancy sanding them,I don't even like the alloys that are on it but they might look better painted up.

irelandspurs

Got them cleaned yesterday and they are painted in the middle and polised metal around the rim.The paint is blistering and the metal has bad corrosion on it that won't budge.Am thinking now about stripping the paint and giving them a good sand,etch prime the whole wheel then finish coat,will this be ok?
There not great alloys just can't afford to replace so may as well use what came with the car.

MarkR

They're not really going to get worse. Sand the bejaysus out of it and see what they turn out like? I'm in the middle of doing mine actually. Looking forward to the end result!

irelandspurs

Think i'm just going to set fire to the f**king thing,finding more and more jobs that need doing on this car,wish i had walked away

GreeBo

if they are blistering then a power sprayer (water) will take off a lot of the paint as I found out yesterday when cleaning them!

irelandspurs wrote: »

Got them cleaned yesterday and they are painted in the middle and polised metal around the rim.The paint is blistering and the metal has bad corrosion on it that won't budge.Am thinking now about stripping the paint and giving them a good sand,etch prime the whole wheel then finish coat,will this be ok?
There not great alloys just can't afford to replace so may as well use what came with the car.