My style 5 referb

[Roysneon]

Just picked up a set of these things last Thursday. Starting the refinish on them. Will be the first set of wheels I properly refinish. Some random pics:

Picked them up for $200. Two need to be straightened, and they all need some cosmetic love. They're not totally fucked up but they're rougher than what the pics show. I think $200 was a fair price.



Dirty as hell with brake dust. Some wheel acid and general purpose cleaner at work fixed that up.



You can kind of see how "imperfect" the finish is on them



Looks like OP tried to spray paint three of them but then changed his mind :shifty





Bought a triple square socket and brought them home friday night. Couldn't help but want to 'test fit' them, even though they're the same spec as the front wheels on my car now, and close to the same in the rear.



Got down to business taking them apart







Started wet sanding today. So many blisters




Are you guys doing anything special to remove the factory clear coat or just sucking it up and wet sanding it all off? Mine have some real rough spots so I'm using 220 wet to start with, then going to 400, 600, 800, 1000, 2000, then polish.

I'm about half done stripping the clear from them. Will try to snap some pics of that tomorrow.

[Roysneon]

Has anyone tried aircraft paint stripper to get the clear off the lips/barrels? I'm going to need to use 220 wet to smooth out any imperfections like curb rash or pitting, but if I only had to go over that and not the whole thing to remove the clear it would speed this up a whole lot.

Still undecided on what to do with the faces, probably a slightly darker than OEM silver, either painted or coated with polished lips and maybe gold plated bolts.

[N2MYE30]

Aircraft stripper helped but it was more manual labor to get the rest off...in my case anyway. Here is my thread on how I did it. GL!

[Roysneon]

Awesome, thanks! So are you saying that it made it more work to remove what was left by using the stripper, or that you used the stripper but still needed to do more? I still obviously plan to do the whole wet sand with 400 up to 2000 then polish after removing any imperfections.

[N2MYE30]

The stripper helped but did make a mess. Id definitely would give aircraft stripper a try. That layer of clear can be very thick and may take some time by hand to get thru to metal. The parts where the clear has failed and gone thru to the metal may require more attention due to eroding but once you figure out what works for your wheels, it will go smooth.

Since mine are 1 piece, I couldn't use a polishing wheel but you have that option so whenever possible, use it. I was very close to making a jig of some sort, using a front strut but I was half done by that time. BTW, depending on to condition of your wheels, 200 might be the starting point.

[Roysneon]

Awesome, thanks for the advice. The closest to a refinish I had ever done before this was scuffing and spray painting some crap old wheels. I have a couple friends who can get me a bit of actual aircraft stripper so I will hit it with that and see what happens.