Refinishing/machining wheels
Thought people might be interested to see the results of this year's wheel refinishing efforts. I bought a set of 350z wheels from McGuyver who originally planned to have them refinished, but then found a mint set so sold these on. They came with a fair bit of road rash, of which 90% was on the flat faces and lips, so I figured that I could easily sand them down and leave a machined or polished finish.
Here's some of the original damage (this example wheel was the worst):
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
After initially testing out a hand sanding block, I found the OEM paint is indeed really durable and I'd kill myself doing it by hand (I'd previously sanded curb rash out of 3-piece wheel lips by hand, which was the most effective method for those unpainted lips). So I stepped up to an orbital sander with 60 and 80 grit paper. Each wheel took 25-40 minutes to get the paint off and scratches out.
Here you can see an in-progress shot, showing the original top paint, the black undercoat (hypersilver typically uses semi-transparent silver over black, which is why it's hard to match and/or blend), the grey primer underneath, and then bare metal at the edges of the spoke face.
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
This is after 60/80 grit sanding, having removed all the surface rash. Since I'm not repainting, I didn't tackle anything that was down on the inner curves. This meant that a couple of nicks are left on the spoke edges too.
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
Next I put 120 grit paper on the orbital sander, gave each another quick pass, and then put a bit of a radial machining onto the spokes by holding it at an angle. It's not perfect but it will do - I was a bit time-crunched since I'm getting summer tires today.
Here's the finished product. A bonus of the black paint is that it leaves a nice little border on the polished surfaces. Given how hard the OEM paint is, I'm not really worried about these edges starting to chip or peel on their own.
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
A little under-exposed so you can see the brush marks I left.
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
The whole wheel.
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
350z rims by Steve Hayward, on Flickr
I'm not 100% certain that I'll leave the brush marks on the wheels, but they're ready to get tires and go on the car. I did some testing with 800 grit paper and with a bit of work the spokes could easily look more polished, but I don't have the time to do it right now. I should be able to tackle the spokes in the summer though even with the tires on. Either way, for about 4 hours of work, I think I got these back to ~90% perfect, and they are really great from 5 feet away.
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Originally Posted by loki
