Even though I don't hang out around here (sold my '83 Z28 in '02) I figured you guys might like this.

I picked up a set of crosslace wheels on eBay last week, typical clear coat failure. Since I would be mounting them on my '78 T/A, they needed to be cleaned up.

Before



In progress


Stages of completion (nearest original, mid is sanded, and furthest is polished)




I've maybe 4 hours into each wheel and that is taking my time. Centers are original and are still in nice shape so i'm not doing anything with those right now. Next year I will powdercoat them.

If anyone has any questions on my setup feel free to ask.

 

Tell me if I'am wrong, but it looks like you just put the wheel on the rear axle; and had someone give it gas and you held some sandpaper on it while it spun. Is this what you did??

 

I figured someone would ask that... :P

No, actually, I like dangerous stuff but that's one thing I wouldn't play chicken with. I mounted the wheel on the front of a car (a car being a project car), and since they do not have tires I wrapped a crazy big fan belt around the rim, jacked the car up to a desirable height, and put a jackstand under it. To spin the wheel I used a 3hp (eqiv.) electric motor used for powering an air compressor that I have mounted on a wooden platform with some HEAVY scrap steel stock to hold the motor in place so it doesn't get carried away.

Though I still ran the chances of turning my fingers to swiss cheese, it was much, much safer than running the car. Not to mention I didn't use any gasoline.

Here is a better view of an older setup I had when I refinished the stock wheels for my car.

 

thats awesome, those rims look alot better.

 

Beeeee-yootiful!!

I wish i had that polished shine on my refinished wheels.
Very nice!

 

Details please. What materials did you need to achieve the shine on the aluminum?

They look great!

 

i found a prety decent write up on how to do this once.
polishing wheels using rear end

 

LOL

I posted that link up for another TGOer in the past. I'm not a big fan of running the car while it's up on a jack stand.

However, I did find this link:

Refinishing GTA's