# Need advice for painting the face of my BBS replica



## Woody95 (May 7, 2015)

Sorry if this is in the wrong section.

As the title says I need help as how you would paint the face of BBS replica wheels. I picked up some BBS LM reps a few months back for a small fee and I was only intending on sanding the lips and then putting them on the car, however after I've spent a few days sanding the lips down on the fronts and they looked great, I did the rears and due to the bubbled paint, some of the paint started to lift and chip so my ocd has kicked in and I want to repaint the faces!

I am confident enough in my skills to paint the face myself, but the hard part would be masking the fake bolts up perfectly (a few could do with replacing but you can't remove them -_-) and masking the polished lip up. Also with the paint corrosion/bubbling on the face so bad in the crevice around the bolts on the deeper dish rears I would have to pay someone to shot blast them for me as they would be impossible to sand it flat.

So would a company be able to mask the bolts while they shot blast the face, or shall I tell them to blast the bolts too and then just paint the bolts the same colour as the face to save a lot of hassle?

Oh, what colour would you guys paint the face? I'll post a picture of them on the car to see what you think.

Last thing, my biggest problem is that I don't want to spend a lot doing these up as I don't know if the rears will fit when I buy and install coilovers so I don't want to put in more than they'll be worth if I have to sell them after I've refurbished them. So how much will these be worth with the lips done by the face left stock as I might just sell them?

The fronts (faces don't really need painting).















Still abit of corrosion left but can't see it without being inches away:









Fronts polished, rears not touched then.









The rears, need painting.





































Robert.


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## Benn (Aug 22, 2007)

A blaster using a fine sand might just a plastic hood to go over them. But as its the paint under than that has crack you might find it will come back again as you'll get an edge.
Will the bolts not remove at all?

Masking them will be tricky and prob very annoying. but with a 1" wide bit of tape not to hard really. Just time consuming.

Make sure when they are blasted they dont use a heavey/corse grit.


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## robdcfc (Sep 17, 2012)

http://www.wheelpaints.co.uk/Rim-Bolts-Nuts/?wizid=5kfheggdsqj85d8ncb0n1qahb2


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## 3gdean (Jun 18, 2011)

Don't envy you...

The bolts need removing due to that is where the water is getting under the paint, from the exposed aluminium thread.

As it is not a true split rim, the whole wheel will need to be lacquered in one go as not to miss any edges where this can happen again.


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## Woody95 (May 7, 2015)

Thanks guys, sorry for the late reply I didn't get any notifications on crapatalk saying you guys had commented.

Yeah I thought it'd just come back again if it's not fully stripped off.
I don't think they remove and they're plastic and just don't look remove able  
Yeah you can mask them but as you said it's so annoying, after trying to mask a few up before I started sanding I nearly binned the wheels I got that mad trying to do it haha! Also if I did mask them, surely when they got blasted it'd just wear the masking tape off?

Thanks for that link robdcfc.

Haha yeah it's not an easy job! 

I know they need removing but I don't know if they can and I don't want to misshape one to find out I can get it out as they'll then look even worse. 

Yeah I've read that. I've seen some where people have masked the lips up to leave around 2-3mm of lip that'll get lacquered to seal the edge of the paint so that they don't have to lacquer the lips and they look better and last if they're just cleaned and polished (apparently).


One last question guys, how much do you recon they're worth with just the lips done and the faces leaving? I might be selling them as I've just bought coilovers for my car so the rears will borderline fit and the fronts aren't wide enough for the look I'm going for. So is it worth not painting/powder coating the faces and selling?

Rob


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## 3gdean (Jun 18, 2011)

don't think itll be worth the refurb price tbh, they're reps and not that much new...


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## Woody95 (May 7, 2015)

Yeah they're only like £450 new, so do you recon around £100-£200 tops with the lips done?


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## Clancy (Jul 21, 2013)

They're in pretty good condition, if your going to sell them to buy something else I would just sell them as is. Doubt you'll gain anything by trying to improve the condition 

They are the sort of reps that will sell extremely quickly anyway, you won't miss out on much. Don't see why you couldn't get about £200, sounds reasonable to me 

Your average Joe would be happy with that finish and put them straight on the car


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## Harry_p (Mar 18, 2015)

I've seen replacement 'bolts' for reps, no idea where off the top of my head though...

They're usually just plastic inserts that need pressing in. The old ones would have to be drilled out.

But if they're cheap enough it would save hours of masking and awkward sanding.


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