Nothing is better than stock rims. these are from a 92 RS, i stripped them, sanded them (sanded sanded and sanded and sanded) then polished them up. Cost me $50. Let me know what you think.

 

i'll take a set for $50, let me know where to write the check.

 

wow nice score, lots of elbow grease too.

 

ditto.

 

Awsome job

 

thanks!

 

50 bucks omg wtf how? ur one lucky man there

 

the rims came from a friend, they were actually free, i cut some wood for him. the $50 was for the sandpaper, tal-stip and pollish

 

I spent $100 on my pair of fronts (They'll look good in the back when I get rubber put on them). $50 on the two rims and $50 on supplies. I bought like 3 different kinds of paint stripper and none of htem took off the most stubborn chunks. I had to hand sand a lot of them out... ugh.

I got them half stripped already, the guy I bought em from had planned to polish them but I think he decided he just didnt have the time for it and gave me a good deal on em.

I think you need to go back over it with some really low grits, I can still see some of the machining grooves there. I know it's a pain and it takes forever but sanding those out really makes it look good.

Here is the progression of my wheels:

This is after stripping most of the red paint off and hitting it with some 220 grit.



Heh, you can see all the aluminum dust all over the place. Wet sanding doesnt get rid of it entirely I guess. Couldn't have been good to breathe that in, but whatever...



I went back the next day and decided I needed to get rid of those machining grooves, went down to 150 grit and spent at least an hour per rim with that.

Then the same with 220, then with 340, then 420, then 600 I think. Remember, the more time you spend with those heavy grits, the better it's goig to look when you're done. Let the heavy grits work for you, sand until you're sure that's as smooth as it's going to get with that grit, then move on.

This is how they turned out after 600 grit and final polishing. I personally think I'm going to go back to 600 for a while longer sometime soon and go over the lip (I ignored them this time around). The smudges you see in these pictures are actually finger prints, the polishing looks great, I just think I can get the reflections a little clearer with a little more elbow grease.

 

I agree. You want absolutley no machine marks. Mine came out perfect. Stripping them is a pain. Sanding is a pain. Don't be in a hurry to polish. It's like painting a car. If the prep is not right the finish won't look good.

And I would strip those caps too because polished rims with messed up caps won't work.

Keep at it. It takes time to get a perfect set of polished rims.

 

polish, and then paint body color. I really liked it because they did it from the factory on the white and red 91-92 Z28's but they never did it on the blue ones. everyone always thought it was a factory deal.
before and after.

 

Sorry to high jack your thread, but I have refinished my wheels like you all did, but I could not get the center cap to turn out like the rest of the wheel. Is it because its a different metal or what? I did the same procedure to center caps as I did the wheels.

 

Mine turned out like the rest of the wheel. The caps are plastic so they should polish right up. What speed is the buffer at?

Note the reflection of the ground on the center caps.

 

The plastic part is not the problem, it is the metal surrounding the plastic on the center cap.

 

Those look great ! I miss my 92 Rims I polished when I got the car. was one of the 1st things i did. I bet I had 40hrs into them back then. I did 90% of it all by hand and a DA. Then polished em by hand with Mothers. Now I know better and use a big ol buff wheel and white rouge.

The metal on the center caps seems to be a aluminum skin and polished up just as good as the rims.
http://www.cecoatings.com/images/CarStuff/92Z/Rims/
http://www.cecoatings.com/images/Car...olishedRim.jpg
http://www.cecoatings.com/images/Car...s/DSC01484.JPG

 

Wow, those look great! I guess I will go over the centercaps again and see if I can get them to look like yours, thanks TPI383.

 

Thanks. I forget who it was from this site who bought em off me.

You only need to use 800 or 1200 on your caps depending on consition.

 

haha nice man