I have some old wheels for my Saturn that I'm putting snows on. I've had the original tires dismounted. I want to refinish/paint/freshen/make them not look like total crap before I have the snows mounted.
The current condition is the factory finish, which is fairly robust in some areas, has bubbled up in others, and has a corroded aluminum/brake dust combo in the worst. How can I best strip these in my garage/driveway (no sandblaster)?
I'm thinking a combo of brush on stripper, let it sit, pressure wash, then hit them good with a drill/wire wheel. Anything that doesn't come off after that just paint over?
I've refurbished 3 or 4 sets of wheels by sanding them down and painting with wheel paint from the auto parts store. I didn't take them all the way to bare aluminum, just got them smooth and then painted with several coats of colour and clear.
Costs like 10$ a wheel to have them blasted out here. Money well worth it.
Crap that's cheap. I'll check around, but I believe most places charge a lot more than that.
Damn, $10 a wheel? That's not even worth buying the 3 cans of TalStrip aircraft coating remover I normally use!
Its a cheap blast, they have a machine that they just feed the wheels into in the corner and crank them out over the day. Takes a solid week to get them back though.
Damn. I would pay ten bucks a wheel for that anytime and take the week wait. Last wheels I did were the new used ones I put on the RAV4. I bead blasted them in my cabinet and it was a major PITA.
I painted them with Rustoleum flat black and baked them in my oven. Turned out really nice, and if they get any chips, a dab with a paint brush and you can't tell.
Anybody know how to get a chrome finish off aluminum wheels? I have a set of chrome Panasports that need refinishing.
DeadSkunk wrote:
Anybody know how to get a chrome finish off aluminum wheels? I have a set of chrome Panasports that need refinishing.
No, but I would like to know as well.
You pretty much have to take them to a chrome shop and have them take it off.
Cotton
UberDork
2/3/16 3:19 p.m.
Yep, blasting is the way to go. I used to hand sand, use stripper, etc....just not worth it.
Basil Exposition wrote:
You pretty much have to take them to a chrome shop and have them take it off.
Not many want to do it though.
Ten bucks to have a wheel stripped is awesome, way more here.
asoduk
Reader
2/3/16 7:14 p.m.
As others have said, blasting is the way to go. I used to do the sanding thing, then one day my dad says "how about I just use the sandblaster?". He was back in about 30 min with perfectly clean wheels. I do two coats of primer. I used to use the "wheel paint" from the store, but didn't like the amount of flake in them. Now I use some silver paint that matches an early 90s Acura. It matches BBS silver perfectly.
