I'm having wheel envy again

She's looking really good chap, nice one. Especially the single slide to pose, not even a practise in sight!

Cheers

Can I just say to anyone thinking of getting Dai's springs and dampers - DO IT. Better than standard for rolling around/commuting, stiffer than landy dampers after 20 seconds adjustment.

Love the last pic. Think the wheels definitely need the spokes painting like the original ones though, makes them look a bit squarer and more in line with the car. What exhaust does it have out of interest? Looks quite beefy! Great work dude!

Oops! Sorry steve, it's a bit of a pikey system with just the reverb box. I think the end bit might actually be an old drainpipe.

Onto some wheeley goodness.

Some of the wheels look a bit like this. So today I started a bit of refurb with the worst one:


The surfaces are corroding as well as the laquer falling off all over the place:


I made a start with a Stanley blade in some long nose pliers and got most of the loose lacquer off. Unfortunately some of it was stuck fast but these bits also seemed to have nice polished metal still underneath. So the plan with these areas might just be to blend them in when I polish all the surfaces up. This is only a light refurb to get them to an acceptable condition to sell. The other less rare set of wheels I'm going to keep on the 360 and paint.

I made a start using some 600grit wet n dry being quite vigorous to get all the crap off. As the easy stuff came off, I'd wipe the surface clean and apply clean water and perhaps change to fresh sandpaper. I then began to concentrate on the small areas of black and corrosion left on the surface until after about 10 minutes I had one spoke nice and clean:



I maintained this method just concentrating on the spokes for now. After a while I'd gotten to about here:





It looks great on the camera. But close up, quite a lot of the surfaces are still looking like this:



This is OK for now as the wheel is going back on the car anyway. I'll go over again in a few weeks when I've finished the other wheels. I'm also going down to 1200grit before polish.



Ok yeah, I'm a bit of a pikey at times.

A few hours work got me here:


As you can see from this pic, I've got a way to go to "polished" but I'm very happy with the results. No more manky wheel!

I'm impressed

On the not knackered bits you can see rotational cut marks? They were faced on a lathe by the looks originally, then lacquered. Problem is, lacquer can't get into a face cut, unlike something that's key'd. I look forward to seeing what you come up with on them bud.

looking good!

exactly what i've been doing on the cups... and the side cover on my spare gearbox actually lol. I'd go to 1500grit if you can, makes a big difference!

Should be nice when its all done!

I'm impressed too bud. Good work.
I've got some Allycats that I'm going to half-arsedly attempt to refurb, so I shall be uttilising your advice for adding rim shine.

Cheers guys! I'm literally just improvising though, I have no idea what I'm doing

Speedy88 wrote:Cheers guys! I'm literally just improvising though, I have no idea what I'm doing

Well fuck knowledge dude. Whatever you are doing is working. Thats what counts.

I'm pretty gung-ho with most things, I'll just grab a beer and get stuck in. That's why I encourage anyone to try something if you don't know how. A bit like with welding - seemed enormous and difficult until I did it, then I made some crappy welds and learned something. Now I'm not bad at all!

yo just seen your old car on ebay

finn wrote:yo just seen your old car on ebay

I must say the photos are mis leading.

Evoman wrote:

finn wrote:yo just seen your old car on ebay

I must say the photos are mis leading.

It's also still broken. Which is barely mentioned.

Hi Speedy.
Great work there. Love the wheels.
Whats the bloke in the garage use the amunition boxes for
Cheers Mark.

volvosneverdie wrote:

Evoman wrote:

finn wrote:yo just seen your old car on ebay

I must say the photos are mis leading.

It's also still broken. Which is barely mentioned.

Without trying to upset other memmbers, its a very misleading advert :