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Refinishing wheels on the car


Posti

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I decided to take advantage of sunny skies and 80 degrees to work on the Reatta's wheels.  The clear coat was clouded and discolored from age, making them a flat, dingy gray-white color.  I started with 00 grade steel wool and brake cleaner.  The brake cleaner dissolves the clear coat, and the steel wool breaks it up without damaging the metal.  After the clear coat was removed, I used Never-R-Dull metal polish and 0000 steel wool for a final cleanup.  All four wheels took about 3 hours total, and I did not remove them from the car.

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  • 3 months later...

The wheels did have some scratches, but nothing bad. I did not remove all of them, but many came off with the old coating. They are not perfect, but very presentable. And far better than the cloudy gray they started out as!

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  • 1 month later...

They look great.  Unfortunately, my '91's are ridiculously more complex, with an outer ring of aluminum, thin line of painted black, and the rest of the inner section is painted sparkle silver.  The wheels are still and will remain mounted.  I used paint stripper to carefully clean up the clear-coated aluminum outer ring, three applications, and it looks great without yet the benefit of some steel wool.  Next, I want to brush paint the sparkle silver to give me control and to save ALOT of masking off effort, but no one seems to have brush-on sparkle silver.  Lastly, I would touch-up the black line and finally spray on a clear coat unmasked, as I need new tires anyways.  If anyone reading this knows where I can get brush-on sparkle silver please let me know.

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Hiya - look for a hobby/model shop. They carry a broad range of colors and also have fine brushes.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nice job Bob! I have some pretty good scratches that seem to be under the clear coat. My clear doesn't really look cloudy, but I would love to be able to do something about these scratches. Think there's any hope for theses?

Just want your opinion, or anybody's opinion reading this. Thanks, Cory

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I think the scratching is in the clear coat- I had similar marks on mine that went away when I removed the clear. If your clear is OK, you might try cleaning the area really well with polishing compound and then put a light coat of clear gloss over the face of the wheel to refresh the finish.

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  • 1 year later...
On 9/15/2017 at 3:18 PM, Posti said:

I think the scratching is in the clear coat- I had similar marks on mine that went away when I removed the clear. If your clear is OK, you might try cleaning the area really well with polishing compound and then put a light coat of clear gloss over the face of the wheel to refresh the finish.

I might to try this. I have light scratches in the clear that make my wheels look dull.

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On 8/18/2019 at 9:51 AM, Bobnewbie said:

I might to try this. I have light scratches in the clear that make my wheels look dull.

There are instructions here on ROJ if you want to polish your wheels to look almost like chrome.

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