Diy wheel refurb

[sniff diesel]

I've got hold of a very cheap set of 5 BBS alloys for my E36 track car. They are in an appalling condition with the lacquer peeling off as you can see:




4 of them are straight, the 5th one is dented so probably buckled. They're only going to be used for track days as I want a second set to run wet tyres on, so it doesn't need to be a great job. I'm thinking of giving them a going over with a wire brush attachment in the end of a drill then spraying them black. I'm going to practice on the buckled one tomorrow to see how it turns out before starting on the others. Any advice before I start?

[seanmcpot]

if you can try to get them shot blasted with a fine grit,if not you've got many hours of cleaning and polishing ahead,i've been there an done that and it not good(i did a set of 4 for a kitcar,an it took days)

[S3 Alex]

I know a guy who refurbs wheels for a tenner each. Would save the hassle.

[hot metal]

Bead blasting better for alloys.

[sniff diesel]

S3 Alex said:

I know a guy who refurbs wheels for a tenner each. Would save the hassle.

Where's he based?

[S3 Alex]

sniff diesel said:

S3 Alex said:

I know a guy who refurbs wheels for a tenner each. Would save the hassle.

Where's he based?

Doncaster, unfortunately. Quite far away from yourself.

[AndrewW-G]

You could always refurb them properly
pull them apart,
Send the fastners away to be plated
get the centres bead blasted then powder coated & sand,
polish then lacquer the outers,
Then aeasemble with new seals.

Wont cost a huge amount and you can get them to look like new

[matc]

A mate of mine did his old 205gti alloys, he used nitromors on them 1st to remove all the lacquer and paint, then gave them a coat of silver out of a can....to be honest they looked bloody good. I also think that black on the BBS design you have got there shouldn't be too hard to paint, as there aren't a great deal of flat surfaces for the paint to run on, and the black should hide any imperfections.

In short....get some nitromors, a wire brush and give it a go.

[Pat H]

Just to give you some incentive, here are some BBS wheels that I prepared earlier......



I removed the centres and painted them myself.

The bolts cost about £15 to be replated.

The rims were polished by a local metal polishers. I think I paid about £30 per rim.

Well worth the effort.

[sniff diesel]

AndrewW-G said:

You could always refurb them properly
pull them apart,
Send the fastners away to be plated
get the centres bead blasted then powder coated & sand,
polish then lacquer the outers,
Then aeasemble with new seals.

Wont cost a huge amount and you can get them to look like new

Thing is these wheels only cost me £75 and they're only going to get wrecked on track - covered in brake dust, tyre marbles and banging on curbs. Hence I don't want to be spending a fortune on them, not sure I could be bothered undoing all them bolts either.

[sniff diesel]

seanmcpot said:

if you can try to get them shot blasted with a fine grit,if not you've got many hours of cleaning and polishing ahead,i've been there an done that and it not good(i did a set of 4 for a kitcar,an it took days)

You've got me looking at these now:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Sealey-SB951-Shot-Sand-B...

[seanmcpot]

get some steelies,with plastic spinners,you'd save time and money,you would look realy stupid going round a track with them on but people would notice you(maybe for the wrong reasons thow)

[Pat H]

sniff diesel said:

not sure I could be bothered undoing all them bolts either.

It took me forever.

They are special splined bolts and are very expensive to replace.

You will also probably snap one when you torque them back up, just like I did.

It seems a shame to use such a (potentially) nice set of wheels for a track car. Can't you get some cheap one piece rims?

[MrFlibbles]

Pat H said:

sniff diesel said:

not sure I could be bothered undoing all them bolts either.

It took me forever.

They are special splined bolts and are very expensive to replace.

You will also probably snap one when you torque them back up, just like I did.

It seems a shame to use such a (potentially) nice set of wheels for a track car. Can't you get some cheap one piece rims?

Would it be worth the hassle to do a decent job on refurbing them, flog them then buy some one piece rims and have a bit of beer money left over?

[sniff diesel]

Pat H said:

sniff diesel said:

not sure I could be bothered undoing all them bolts either.

It took me forever.

They are special splined bolts and are very expensive to replace.

You will also probably snap one when you torque them back up, just like I did.

It seems a shame to use such a (potentially) nice set of wheels for a track car. Can't you get some cheap one piece rims?

I've got the right socket to undo them (came as part of my Halfords Pro socket set) and I've got the 5th spare wheel to play with in case I broke or lost a few bolts, I just couldn't face spending half a day undoing bolts.

These BBS rims are nice and light and strong for their size. They're quite plentiful too and now most are 10-14 years old most are in need of a refurb so quite cheap too. I can't think of any other wheel this size for that cheap.

[aww999]

Those lattice wheels are gonna be a complete PITA to do a good job on I think. I sanded, filled, primed a painted a set of cheap fox 7-spokes for my Mr2 and they came out really well and only cost me twenty quids worth of black hammerite, but it was probably 20-30 hours work in total. The key to geting a good reliable job is in the prep, every face has to be sanded and degreased etc. Those BBS wheels will take twice as long to do as a simpler design would.

[derin100]

You should never re-use those bolts once taken out. Without a source for a good price on replacement bolts a new set of bolts alone can come to quite a bit of money:

http://cgi.ebay.de/BBS-Chrom-Felgen-Schrauben-Felg...

If you don't know what you're doing when it comes to doing split rims properly you could land yourself with a lot of problems.

I did a set exactly like yours WITHOUT taking them apart (so at least it was 'safe')...but it took forever (weeks every evening) and actually ulitmately the end result was far from perfect.

You're probably better off giving them to a guy like Zack Noor who also sells a lot of these type of wheels on Ebay:

http://www.splitrims.co.uk/refurb.html

[sniff diesel]

Like I said they're a spare set for a budget track car hence me not wanting to go nuts on the costs. I'm not going to bother taking them apart, just strip off as much pealing lacquer as I can before spraying them up. They can't exactly end up looking any worse.

[TallPaul]

I'm guessing those wheels arent split-rims, they look like normal 2 piece wheels to me. As has been said earlier, it will be much easier to sand down the rims if you unbolt the centres, but judging by the state of those bolts, I bet at least a 3rd of them will snap. Then you've got the hassle of trying to drill the studs out, plus the expense of replacing ALL of them (it really is very bad practice to reuse the bolts, even after plating, corrosion will have seriously weakened them.
If they're just going to be a spare set for your wet tyres, I'd just pop the tyres off, clean up the inside edge of the rim where the tyre seals up to and live with the state of them.

[sniff diesel]

They're 2 peice rims - thought that made then split rims?