Project – Polishing Wheels 16×8″ – Update 23rd July 2010

* All the wheel pics are here

UPDATE – 23rd JULY 2010

Decided to add the updates at the top of the post from now on.  Some of these posts will be quite long and I think it will read better if the newer stuff is at the top.  You never know, might change my mind again.

The latest is that although I’d finished the wheel in VHT aerosol and they looked great I just didn’t feel that the finish was going to last.  In the end I was right as a simple finger nail test proved that these wheels are going to need refinshing before too long.  So it’s back to square 1 and I am now prepping the wheels for 2 pack.  Bought the paint and new gravity gun.  At the moment I am priming the wheels with a suitable base (Upol Acid 8).  Hopefully I’ll be painting by the end of July.  In the meantime at the top of this post I added previously posted pic of a wheel finished in VHT – looks nice so it was a bit tough to sand it back..  Anyway, it’s all a learning experience.

UPDATE – 5th JULY 2010

Got the 8’s polished and painted.  Took a while and still not 100% sure about the satin finish as they are a bit more matte than gloss.  They don’t have the same shine as the originals but I’ll put the tyres on and see what I think.  If they don’t grow on me I’ll redo them – but the priority will be low.  They actually look good and the wheels are much newer looking.  The deep dish 8’s are going to make a big difference to this car.  With the other projects going on I might get to see what they look like by the end of 2010!!  More pics added to gallery.

Started polishing the wheels and after 6.5 hours of rubbing I just couldn’t get some pitting out.  It’s only minor but would annoy the hell out of me so I finally sucumbed to outsourcing this.  Contacted Graham at Coburg Mag Wheel Polishing and took them down.  He said they should come up good and laughed at my attempts to do this by hand.  I asked him how he does it and he showed me his big @rse lathe!

I should get them back next week.

The funny thing is that I was convinced I was going to go down the polished lips AND Petals/Pedals path.  At the last moment I couldn’t do it – while I love the look it’s not quite the right era for my SC.  Instead I am going to refinish the centres in satin black, which means that I will also redo the 7s that I am moving to the front.

For now here are some before pics including one wheel stripped and sanded but still not ready!!

I’ll update this post when I make more progress.  Can’t wait to stick these on the car.