Hi all! For a while now I've been wanting to dabble in rim repair, but just haven't had the time and TBH it's not really high on the priority list; just something I've been wanting to try. The other day the owner of the dealership came to me and asked me if I knew someone who could make a set of Challenge rims look decent again and of course I said yes. Then I stopped and said, "Actually... I'll do it." He gave me the green light and told me to pick the eherm, "nicest" 6 out of the lot (there were about 50+ to choose from) and go to town! Yeah!! Nothing like doing some experimental rim repair on some
really friggin' expensive rims (IIRC I think they're about 3,000 Euros each...)! Makes my sphincter tingle
. BTW the reason they needed to be refurbished is because one of the Challenge cars are going to be in an exhibition this weekend (as if "because it's a Ferrari" wasn't enough reason
)
Anyway, here's what I was up against and remember these were the "best" 6 I could find (actually I did take one that was in really bad shape just to liven the experiment up a bit)...
Excuse the first few B&W pictures, I forgot to set my camera back to normal. Well actually everything in the picture is B&W anyway so it really doesn't matter
.
Track Parmesan... Don't know if any of you have ever had the unpleasant experience of cleaning track Parmesan or not but let me tell you it sucks butt grapes... corny and peanutty ones.
What's "track Parmesan"? It's shredded "track spaghetti" and "track spaghetti" is clumps and lumps of tires, asphalt, gravel, etc. that conglomerate on the track and get rolled into big noodles. After that they get stuck and shredded between the rims and the brake calipers like. Here's some sketti >>
War wounds
A closer look at the track Parmesan... burned in and caked on. It took me about 1.5 hours to clean each rim...
:
After soaking in tar remover for several minutes I scrubbed the hell out of it with a full-grown hedgehog.
All cleaned up and all the :censored: counterweight glue also removed.
Once the entire rim was clean I sanded it with 1000 grit sandpaper to grind down the scratches and to score the spots that were clear-coated. I didn't use a primer because the condition of the rim after wet sanding was enough for the paint to adhere. There were a lot of places where I had to sand down to the metal and even a little past to get the scratches out. After all the sanding was done I sprayed each rim with one coat of high-temperature paint (it was a very close match to the original color, too!). This process took a little time though.
I couldn't very well spray the entire rim from one angle because the paint would never be even that way so here's what I did >> I chose a starting point (this was the "BBS" logo for me) and I sprayed each "spoke" of the rim going clockwise, then I waited for about 10 minutes. Then I went back to the same starting point, but this time I sprayed the sides going clockwise and then waited another 10 minutes. After that, the "inner circle" and where the rim goes on the hub. Then after another 10 minutes I sprayed the "face" of the rim (spokes). The reason I waited between the different sections is because I didn't want too much paint to build up (caused by overspray), thus causing a run. It worked perfectly
. Here's rim #1 complete with the valve back in place >>
Oh and after the basecoat was on I waited for about 15-20 minutes and then gave it a coat of clear. Here's the weapons of choice (purchased at the local Tesco) for this adventure >>
On to the next one >>
Oh joy. Something other than track Parmesan... "track spunk" I'll call it. This stuff wouldn't budge with tar and glue remover so all I can guess is that it's some kind of plastic that's melted onto the rim. Being that the rim has a 1,000,001 small lesions on it, it's very susceptible to just about anything sticking to it.
Busted out the putty knife to scrape as much of this off as I could... I was EXTREMELY careful while doing this, as I didn't want to induce any scratches...
Here's the part that I enjoyed the most
. Grinding!! Two of the rims had very deep cuts on them all around the lip of the rim (the cust went into the rim itself). So I broke out the grinder and smoothed things out, trying to make the cut as even as possible. These wheels are fairly soft so sanding them with 1000 finished things up nicely.
The first rim was much worse and I forgot to take a picture of it, but this one was also a mess.
Me with the grinder on a fully wet sanded rim.
Fuuuun!
Smoothed out with 1000 grit
Some of the places that needed to be filled in with Bondo. Filled it in, sanded it out, that's it.
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