Mk1 Tasmin FHC

[toms-dad]

Would anyone know the colour code for the original disc wheels on the Mk 1. Considered other colours, but original looks best. Looking to purchase a new set of tyres and it makes sense to have the wheels recoated before I do that.

Cheers,
Graham.

[Wedg1e]

There wasn't a colour, they were clear-lacquered bare alloy (in fact they might not have been lacquered, I don't recall there being any on mine which probably explains why they were so badly pitted). Only the detail ring was filled-in in black.

[toms-dad]

Ah.

Well that saves a bit of money. Easy enough profile to keep waxed/oiled.
Thanks for your reply, I shall make enquiries about getting them stripped.

[Wedg1e]

toms-dad said:

Ah.

Well that saves a bit of money. Easy enough profile to keep waxed/oiled.
Thanks for your reply, I shall make enquiries about getting them stripped.

I think the term used is 'diamond cut' although it's just a lathe used to take a light skim off the rough casting. You can have them re-done this way but most places will get nervous and tell you that if you they deep enough to get the worst pits out, there's a risk of structural weakening - they'd rather you just paint them. You could skim and clear lacquer them but the tiniest amount of corrsion left in a pit will have the lacquer first clouding and then lifting in no time. The best option is the old bikers' trick of getting the alloy shiny and polishing it every week

Little story for you (although I've told it on here before )... when I got my first Tasmin in '95 the wheels were in a parlous state and no amount of Autosol could get the corrosion pits out of the 15-year-old alloys.
Around that time one of my service customers was Alloy Wheels International who had a factory at Whitchurch, just outside Cardiff. They specialised in casting wheels for the small volume car builders like Lotus and Rolls-Royce, but they also did prototype work for the likes of Rover.
On one service visit I was talking to the production manager and told him about the state of my wheels and he told me to bring them down at the next visit, 6 months hence.
I took him at his word and 6 months later pulled the wheels off the car, heaved them in the van and went off to Wales.
Now when the newly cast wheels came out of the casting dies, one of the stages of manufacture involved media blasting to provide a key for the paint, which involved the wheels going round a carousel with a permanent stream of air and grit firing across it. Unfortunately over time the grit had eroded the side of the cabinet, blowing grit around the place so they'd shut the machine down to repair it. When the prod. manager saw my wheels he said they'd need a good blasting so they were sent 'up the valley' to a local company.
Next morning when I got back to the factory the wheels were there, but they looked like they'd been blasted with TNT, never mind AlOx. The pits were now craters. They had the texture of Hammerite.
Unperturbed by this, our man decreed that they should go through the paint line a couple of times, which they did, in the company of some 20" Rolls wheels
After three passes they were still far from perfect but I couldn't do much about it so I bought him a few Lotto tickets for his trouble and refitted them to the car.
About 6 years later I sold the Tasmin to a guy who wanted it as a racer for the then-new Tasmin Challenge.
About 2 years after that a guy down the road from me bought a spare set of wheels on the 'net, which turned out to be 'mine', still perfect in Rolls-Royce silver metallic... as far as I know he sold them on so I reckon they're still out there somewhere... probably still shiny, if not perfectly smooth

[Tasmin200]

I was at a powder coating place a couple of months ago and they had a finish which looked like polished alloy. It wasn't too shiny like chrome.

If you get tired of polishing your wheels that might be a reasonable compromise. It would be very easy to clean.

It kinda looked like this.

Edited by Tasmin200 on Monday 6th March 19:07

[gmw9666]

These are on flea bay http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/0213-TVR-Tazmin-14-Single-...