School me on Alum- clearcoated rim cleaning

[Richard Grasa]

$250 is an excellent price, I was charging at least $100 per wheel when I had my little powder coating side business. But I had to farm out my media blasting so that added to the price. The options for colors, textures, etc for powder coat these days is huge, so many to choose from. Post up some pics if you get them done. Exhausting, but worth it!

[PDoyle]

Let me ask...

Ever have a problem with adding the weights to the rim after powder coating?

Is there something I can do to not chip the rims with the tire install?

[Richard Grasa]

Ask them to use the stick on weights on the inside barrel of the wheel. If they say they can`t or won`t for some reason, take them somewhere else. The tire install itself should be fine, normally the only time they would have an issue is with very low profile tires as they are difficult to install onto the wheel. Also tell them if they chip the powder coat you will be making sure they pay for a recoat.

[Richard Grasa]

Powder coat is very resilient to chipping, but it can happen. What`s cool about it is if you were to take a piece of tin foil and powder coat it (I have done this), you can actually take the foil and fold it in half and take your fingernails and make a very tight crease in the foil and the coating will not crack or peel at all, whereas paint would crack and peel right off. It`s awesome stuff.

[PDoyle]

The stick on weights are a great idea till they fall off IMO.

I have trust issues. Ya can`t find a good tire shop. I gotta think on this a little more. I was all over polishing them up for the next 5 years.

[Richard Grasa]

I`ve never had an issue with the weights falling off on many, many different sets of wheels. Well, good luck with whatever you decide to do and keep posting your questions.

[Accumulator]

I too have been using adhesive weights on a *LOT* of wheels since the `80s. I can think of three times that a weight has come off, and that`s out of literally dozens of *sets* of wheels; two of those times were an apparently bad batch of weights that my Porsche/Audi dealer got. Heh heh, most of the time the hassle with adhesive weights is getting them off when you *want* to, like when you rebalance, the glue is usually very tough stuff.



IME the biggest risk with damage to powdercoating (and anodizing and plating and painting...) is the tire mounting process. I`ve seen somebody *VERY* good (Chuck Mallett ) do it with zero damage, and he was even redoing it a few times until he found the "sweet spot" where minimal weights were required. But it seems like everybody else...*everybody*...eventually does a little bit of damage to the wheel`s finish around the edge of the rim where the tire`s bead seals. Sooner or later, with enough remounting, it just happens, at least with all the shops I`ve used (other than Mallett Cars ). But if you get lucky, and don`t have as many tires mounted as I do, maybe you can avoid it happening to you.



Find out where the local exotic-car owners are having their tires mounted and balanced (and look for a Hunter RoadForce balancing machine, don`t let `em use anything else).

[PDoyle]

Good info. I can get 65k miles out of the tires which equates to at least 6 plus years.

I had a guy chip my rim on my Jeep just trying to rotating the tires.

[Accumulator]

..I had a guy chip my rim on my Jeep just trying to rotating the tires.

Yeah, I`ve gotten to where I simply *dread* having anybody else remove my wheels! Latest "oops!" was a tech at my Chevy dealer chipping my oh-so-carefully painted rear drums. I mean...*?!?WHAT?!?*...I`ve taken those wheels off countless times and never done anything like that



Another tip- if you have a favorite lug socket (mine have plastic sleeves), send it along and insist that they use it. Besides being easier on your wheels, it`ll preclude the use of an impact (tell `em it`s not impact-rated) and/or a "torque stick"..forcing them to do stuff the more careful way.

[Ron Ketcham]

I still can not move photo`s from the Gallery to the thread.

However, I put in my Gallery a shot of two of the set of four wheels I recently redid for a client`s Restro-Mod, a 56 Pontiac Safari.

If one has a media blaster (I use silca or sand to remove the old coatings) and some patience, the same can be obtained by most anyone.

Nic`s were sanded out, then sanded with 220, then 1200, then Mother`s Power Metal polish with felt and cotton wheels.

The finished wheel shown has 4 coats of clear wheel urethane over the polished and painted areas.

Granted, the vehicle will not be a daily driver, exposed to salts, mag cloride, etc, so they will hold up for years.

Grumpy

[PDoyle]

Yeah, I`ve gotten to where I simply *dread* having anybody else remove my wheels! Latest "oops!" was a tech at my Chevy dealer chipping my oh-so-carefully painted rear drums. I mean...*?!?WHAT?!?*...I`ve taken those wheels off countless times and never done anything like that



Another tip- if you have a favorite lug socket (mine have plastic sleeves), send it along and insist that they use it. Besides being easier on your wheels, it`ll preclude the use of an impact (tell `em it`s not impact-rated) and/or a "torque stick"..forcing them to do stuff the more careful way.

Never thought of plastic on the lug nut socket. I`m all over that.

[PDoyle]

I still can not move photo`s from the Gallery to the thread.

However, I put in my Gallery a shot of two of the set of four wheels I recently redid for a client`s Restro-Mod, a 56 Pontiac Safari.

If one has a media blaster (I use silca or sand to remove the old coatings) and some patience, the same can be obtained by most anyone.

Nic`s were sanded out, then sanded with 220, then 1200, then Mother`s Power Metal polish with felt and cotton wheels.

The finished wheel shown has 4 coats of clear wheel urethane over the polished and painted areas.

Granted, the vehicle will not be a daily driver, exposed to salts, mag cloride, etc, so they will hold up for years.

Grumpy

Nice pics in your gallery. There`s 2 pics of the same rims. The one left side of pic is the before I assume?

To post pics send them to photobucket and click on the icon in the reply box to download the link.

[Richard Grasa]

Wheels look really good Ron! Here`s an Iroc wheel I did a few years back. I can`t find the before pics, but these things were pretty trashed. I blasted them with black beauty and then sanded them starting with 600 and worked up to 2000 and then masked, sprayed the black, unmasked and sprayed 3 coats of clear. Didn`t even do any polishing since they looked so good after the 2000 grit. Hard work but so worth it.

[PDoyle]

They look very good. Is the surface " like new" after powder coating or is there some minor flaws that can`t be removed?

I saw where some people are using a spray on clear coat remover for my type of rim first then blasting it. Can`t find the name though. Some airplane type stuff.

[Richard Grasa]

Thanks. The Irocs weren`t powder coated, those were sprayed with paint. I posted the pic so you can see how nice you can make them look just by blasting and sanding them with multiple grits of sandpaper and clear coating them.



Any deep flaws in the surface will show up in the powder coat, just like paint. So you would need to sand or grind flush any nicks or deep scratches. But for lighter imperfections, the powder coat will usually hide them. You can`t use body filler to fill the deep stuff like you can if you paint them, as they need to be heated to 400 degrees for the powder to flow out and cure and will destroy the body filler. There is a product that can be used to fill deep flaws and will withstand the heat, but I had never had to use it. The guy you found, if he`s good will probably know the product. I`m sure other stuff has come out since I used to powder coat.



Yeah you can use a stripper before you blast, but IMO that`s a waste of time since the blast media will strip the clear right off. There`s quite a few brands of stripper, brush on, spray on, etc. Nasty stuff though.