# DIY wheel refurb 2 !



## uruk hai

I'll start by saying that I've never before done any kind of wheel refurb or a write up detailing it but here goes !

The wheels are BBS RA's that were intended to go on my now sold MK2 Golf GTI! After deciding that I wanted a set I soon decided that I wasn't going to pay what people were asking for them so I managed to find a set of 4 that were going cheap because one of then was completely ruined due to being very heavily kerbed and over the next several months I found and bought another 3 and after scrapping two of the original 7 I was left with 5 good ones.

Obviously to start with I gave all 5 wheels a really good wash and scrub to give me some idea of what I was faced with. After realising that parts of the rim were too badly scraped to be just sanded I opted to use a small flat file which was perfect for going round the complete rim of the wheel and which greatly reduced the appearance of the worst digs and scrapes, for other parts of the wheel that were beginning to suffer from corrosion I used a Dremel with a wire brush attachment to remove any oxidisation, at which point I was left with this:-



The next stage was the longest and most labour intensive part of the job, I started sanding and was using 320 grit and then eventually moved onto a scotch pad to get to every part of the wheel and remove as much paint as possible, I would guess that this took me about 2 - 2.5 hours per wheel (plus numerous cups of tea). Once I was happy with the sanded wheels and confident that the surface would now provide a good key to receive paint I gave them all a good few coats of etch primer which left me with this:-



When every wheel was in primer I used very small amounts of filler to smooth out any tiny knocks and kerb marks that were still visible, this was then sanded (again with 320) and where needed another coat of etch primer was added to give complete coverage. The next stage was to apply a light coat of white primer which I used as a guide coat that was then followed with a few coats of dark grey high build primer, once I was happy the primer was completely dry it was back to sanding and when I sanded back through grey to the white primer I was sure I was left with a very flat finish that was completely free of knocks and all but the smallest of imperfections. Now it was onto 2000 wet and dry which I used wet to get rid of any remaining tiny scratches and give a good very flat all over finish that was ready to receive colour.

Once I had picked the colour I wanted I cleaned the wheel with a spirit wipe and it was onto applying the top coat which I sprayed from as many angles as I could to ensure that even the sharpest angle of the spokes received good and even coverage.
The centre of the wheel was given 3 or 4 quite light coats and the rim of the wheel was given a few heavier coats. The finished and fully dry top coat was to my surprise quite rough (probably due to the metallic flakes in the paint) and looked like this:-



The top coat was not sanded at all and it was straight on to the application of lacquer which was applied in quite heavy and even coats with each wheel receiving several coats of lacquer over the course of several says. When the lacquer was completely dry (10 - 14 days) I gave them a very light sand again with 2000 wet and dry and then a good coat of polish which left me with this:-



I hope this proves helpfull to someone :thumb:


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## Nickos

Excellent work, i would have lost my patience after one wheel of sanding no doubt!


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## chris l

looking good.this is inspiring me to do mine


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## ianrobbo1

splendid job that man!!:thumb:

note to self, DONT referb multi spoke wheels it's too much like hard work!!


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## SiGainey

Great results  Would it have been easier to have the wheels media blasted to remove the paint rather than spend 2-2.5 hours with paper and pad?


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## Needs a clean

SiGainey said:


> Great results  Would it have been easier to have the wheels media blasted to remove the paint rather than spend 2-2.5 hours with paper and pad?


It probably would have been, but where is the fun in that. Its like the resto projects you see posted on here. I would have been easier to hand the car over to a pro and say fix it, but when you see the end result, you can stand back and say "i did that". To me, its worth all the hard work to see the end result that i have created. :thumb:


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## SiGainey

See what you mean  But you're still doing the painting yourself and fixing the kerb rash so you are still DIY. There's making life harder and then making it harder


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## Needs a clean

SiGainey said:


> See what you mean  But you're still doing the painting yourself and fixing the kerb rash so you are still DIY. There's making life harder and then making it harder


I agree :thumb:, but i prefer to do the job from scratch to completion by myself. Not everybody has the time to do this of course.


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## uruk hai

SiGainey said:


> See what you mean  But you're still doing the painting yourself and fixing the kerb rash so you are still DIY. There's making life harder and then making it harder


I understand where your comeing from but I had the time, space and materials to do it all by hand and I suprised myself with the finish I achieved. It was a long process but I can honestly say that the comments and feeling of satisfaction it has given me has made it all worth while. Just a shame I dont have a car for them to go on and they'll end up on ebay


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## evenflow

Great job, they look excellent.
Just out of interest, what was your outlay for the wheels and materials, and what could you now sell them for?


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## cosmos

Wow! The last but one pic they look like polished aluminium not painted! Hats off to you sir for the tedium of sanding lattices :thumb:


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## Ian2k

nice work


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## uruk hai

evenflow said:


> Great job, they look excellent.
> Just out of interest, what was your outlay for the wheels and materials, and what could you now sell them for?


To be honest, I havent worked it out yet but I got a lot of the materials for free through a freind who used to run a Auto paints shop and I dont really know what they would be worth but I'd like to get quite a bit back as they'll be sold with almost new Goodyear Eagle and Excellnce tyres on. I also have the BBS centre caps, locking wheel nuts and the black plastic wheel bolt covers so I'll just have to see what happens when I get round to selling them.


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## Shiny_Shiny

great work! love a set of RA's


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## ianrobbo1

must admit it has inspired me to set about my own set of duff alloys!!:thumb:


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## whitey83

Looks good. Always fancied doing this but get a feeling I'd get bored after 5 minutes and/or make an **** of it. Nice to see a professional looking finish can be achieved at home.


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## sriturbo

looks realy good, will maybe try mine sometime


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## lpoolck

fantastic work, I agree its best when you do all the work, gives you that much more pride in the result...and makes u damn sure you look after them from then on in!


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## The Cueball

Don't know how I missed this first time round...they look great mate, very nice finish!

Did you sell them in the end!??!?!

:thumb:


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## Guest

Great work :thumb: and nice patience with them, I'm sure when you look at the results your glad you spent so much time on them


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## uruk hai

The Cueball said:


> Don't know how I missed this first time round...they look great mate, very nice finish!
> 
> Did you sell them in the end!??!?!
> 
> :thumb:


Thanks 

I did yes, I sold the set of 4 wheels, the wheel nut covers, the BBS Centre caps and the locking wheel nuts all to the same person. I "gave" the buyer the 5th wheel on the understanding that it was only to be used as a spare as it had the smallest buckle in it that wasnt noticed untill the wheel was balanced !


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## danwel

in the process of doing my winter wheels i bought and half way through wheel one and already lost the will to live


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## uruk hai

danwel said:


> in the process of doing my winter wheels i bought and half way through wheel one and already lost the will to live


Don't give up mate, just work on them for a reasonable amount of time and you won't lose the will to live so quickly. 

Little and often is the key and you could easily have them ready for next winter, get some pictures up and let us have a look at them.


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## danwel

yeah not touched them for a while with one thing and another but hopefully will get time to crack on with them once it warms up as i want to get some winter tyres well before winter at a bargain price with a bit of luck


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## flatlinerz

very nice good job!


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## Bezste

Very nice. Which colour silver did you use? I'm after a "sparkly" silver for my winter wheels - the brighter the better.

Last time I did them I used Simonez wheel silver - but it came out more grey than silver


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## Porkypig

Nice! I had a mk11 8v GTI with the BBS kit and these wheels. Loved that car...


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