Restoring Alloy Wheels with 'White Worm' degradation

Captain Flaps · 23-04-2013 11:31am #1

My GF bought herself a car and it had a somewhat wrecked set of alloys on it, the tyres are bald and totally unsuitable for commuting on Irish roads. Rather than replace the tyres I picked up a set of steel wheels and now I'm looking to restore these before I flog them.

Now, there's some degradation around the rims where the previous owner kerbed the hell out of them, I'm told that moisture probably got under the laquer and that's what's causing the 'white worm' you can see in the pics. The spokes themselves aren't actually too bad, I think with a bit of work these could look half decent again. This is the worst of them, the best has almost no degradation and minimal scrapes:

So yeah, what's the best way to approach this? Scrub off the laquer, remove the white stuff and re-laquer? Just paint over them? Admit defeat and bin them? All suggestions welcome, though I'd rather spend as close to €0 on this job considering what I'm probably going to end up selling them for.

listermint · 23-04-2013 2:39pm

Personally to save the hastle id just sand and paint. Removing laquer is a nightmare without the correct equipment and it will be a lot of man hours for very little return.

Captain Flaps · 23-04-2013 2:45pm

Cheers for the reply. When I said remove the laquer I was just intending on sanding down to the muck, cleaning it and then respraying with a clear coat of something. I'm just trying to work out what's the best way of doing any of this without destroying the rims, it'd be great to get something for them.

listermint · 23-04-2013 2:47pm

Captain Flaps wrote: »

Cheers for the reply. When I said remove the laquer I was just intending on sanding down to the muck, cleaning it and then respraying with a clear coat of something. I'm just trying to work out what's the best way of doing any of this without destroying the rims, it'd be great to get something for them.

The Laquer would have to be removed first with some Nitromors or stronger and thats a nightmare job. Then a sand and clean and then a new coat. Its a huge amount of effort. Cant see getting very much for them tbh.

Hal1 · 23-04-2013 5:27pm

I would get them sand blasted or chemical dipped and them do the rest of the work myself. Still a fair bit of work involved after that process though.

sean1141 · 23-04-2013 6:57pm

Have a look at this

http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=427081

Restoring Alloy Wheels with 'White Worm' degradation

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