I finaly found a decent set of crossed laced wheels, at a good price. The set is not scratched, bent, and there is no curb rash. The paint is good, but the clear coat is peeling. I hope to install them on my 86 WS6. The car is a 27K original garage baby, that the dealer used as a demo (a family member drove it) until the fall of 87, then swapped the original crossed laced wheels out for a set of Formula Wheels prior to selling the car to the original owner. I bought the car from the original owner about a year ago. The car is blue with silver trim, has a RPO code PW7, so I am assuming that the original wheels had black centers. The set of wheels that I bought have gold centers, so I am going to strip them, polish the rim parts to a show finish, and repaint the centers in black. I am thinking that I will use a good grade of automotive acrylic enamel with a hardner in it, maybe a satin finish? Any suggestions or ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

I just finished stripping my second set of wheels yesterday. I'm not gonna lie, it's a PITA!!! After market wheels are not as bad as the stockers. Budget about 15 hours +/- just to strip each wheel. The clear comes off easy. It's the paint and the other rubbery coat underneath the paint that are a bitch. You'll need several of the small brass bristle brushes that Home Depot sells for about $1 each. You are going to need those to basically scrub all the paint off the spokes.

If you want to save a HUGE headache I highly recommend getting them media blasted. Trust me, it will be worth the money.

Repainting and polishing is the easy part.

 

Do these wheels have the dimples in the crosslaces? If they don't that clearcoat is going to be a BITCH to get off. The dimpled ones have the clear that comes off pretty easily. Just get a can of aircraft paint stripper from wal-mart and go to town.

 

They have to dimples. The clear is peeling in places, however the gold paint is like new. I am thinking that maybe I can strip the clear, but not disturb the gold, other then to scuff the surface so that the black will stick to it.

 

Yeah, I hope that works for you. If you get any stripper on the painted part it will eat through the clear and bubble the paint underneath it. That's when the "fun" begins. I thought too that I could just take the clear off and not disturb the paint....man was I wrong.

There is also clear on the sides of the spokes. If you don't get that off it will flake off whatever paint you put on leaving a nice gold spot in the center of your black wheel.

 

I did this once too. I HIGHLY recommend some heat resistant paint on top of primer.





The paint pictured IS NOT heat resistant. Ask me how I know.

 

Thanks for the tips, It sounds like the media blasting down to bear metal may be best. Otherwise, it sounds like I will probably royaly mess it up. I will also look for the heat resistant paint, or how would it look to have it media blasted, then polish the rims and leave the spokes bear metal?
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PS: Cool Vert!

 

Just use the aircraft stripper on the whole thing, let it sit for a minute and if you have access to either a pressure washer or a good strong hose, just spray it off. Use a small wire brush to get in between the spokes.

 

Aircraft stripper sucks. Its messy, it can burn you and it takes forever to get the job done. I have no idea why everyone is so in love with it here. Either buy a cheap sand blaster or pay to have the wheels blasted somewhere, the time and agrivation of using stripper just isnt worth it. if you do blast them make sure yopu dont use actual sand though, you want either glass bead, plastic or maybe soda for the media. I have glass bead in my blaster and it seems pretty gentle on aluminum but if you hit the polished area too much you are going to have some time involved in bringing back the shine. Another option is to send the wheels outand have them refinished by a pro shop. The prices arent really that bad once you factor in the time and effort to get the wheels to show quality and the pros can fix curb rash and gouges too. Just my opinion.

 

I've used the stripper for YEARS and never had a problem. The dimpled wheels that he has come VERY clean easily with the stripper. The clear basically just melts off.

 

Stripped back to metal, polished rims and centres painted gunmetal grey [on a black car].

I just left them bare, without clear coat...

 

Mine used to be gold but I stripped them and painted the centers gunmetal grey using WP102 Graphite Duplicolor wheel coating paint. I think they came out pretty good. I have repolished them since these pics were taken.

 

wow, those look great.. hhmmm,, maybe ill try that. do u have more pics of the whole car?

 

Cool Looking rims!

 

I like that look! From the picture your rims look like the laced part of the wheels are polished bare aluminum? How do you get that look and finish? I think that it will be a good look for my car, as it is cobalt blue with silver trim. The original crossed laced wheels probably had black centers, however I think the polished looks better.

 

Another thought is to have them chromed. Chromed versus Polished? Ideas? Feedback? Thanks in advance.

 

It wont be cheap, but I think that would look wicked.

 

They are just painted - the paint was a dark grey [gunmetal/charcoal type colour] with a lot of silver fleck in it. For some reason, the silver fleck seems to have settled on the front face of the spokes. From some angles they look quite silver but otherwise they look like a sort of shadow chrome if you know what I mean? They are dark grey on the inside faces of the spokes - you may be able to see what I mean in this shot...[not a very good photo ]

 

Thanks for the clarification. Bad picture or not, the wheel still looks great! It has a custom look to it. I am undecided about either keeping mine stock, sort of, ie; polished with black centers, or go for chrome plating. Chrome plating will look great, but I am concerned that the chrome may fail and peel off in the future. Any thoughts about that potential problem? Besides looking great, I am also looking for low maintenance. My car is an 86 and has the code PW7 for the crossed laced wheels. The set of wheels I bought have the dimples, so they are not the correct wheels for the car, so if I ever decide to make it a show car, I will need to find the non-dimpled crossed laced wheels.The car is a 27K lightly used garage queen, but it is far from show ready. It had the water based paint, which cracked, and has a decent, but not great repaint on it. It is a nice number 2, and looks great in a parking lot, but has some issues under florescent lighting. Right now it is just a toy, and we do drive it some, and it may be more fun just to keep it that way, rather then take it to the next level. I had a Shelby GT 350, that I kept working on until I got to show quality, that I was afraid to drive it anywhere...

 

Any thoughts about chrome versus polishing?

 

I saw a GTA last summer with chromed gta rims, they looked amazing.

 

Chrome would cost more. But, the upside is chrome is ALOT easier to maintain than polished (just wipe it off with a rag and Windex), it also shines better. Polished rims are more high maintenance being that you have to actually polish them on a regular basis or they'll get dull.

 

Also depends on what look you are after I guess. I quite like the look of polished alloy and the centres painted look great. I tend to favour the look of good quality OEM wheels but polishing them up gives them a but more sparkle and originality.

 

Lots of good tip here, But Can some one post up a pic of a so called "non-dimpled crossed laced wheels" and the "dimpled wheel", I did not know there was such a thing, or maybe I did, but not sure what it was.

 

Thanks to everyone for thier input. Original looking cars are always appealing, so the argument for polishing the wheels has merit. I like the idea of low maintanence, so the chrome is appealing from that standpoint. Since I work an average of 75 hours a week, I like the idea of pulling the car out of the garage, giving it a quick wash, and go. The main concern about the chrome, is the possible failure of the chrome finish itself. On an older post, a member expressed concern over the chrome finish peeling off of his alloy wheels on a special edition Bonneville. Does anyone have any experience with modern chrome finishes, how well they work on alloy metals, and how they stand the test of time. Thanks in advance.

 

The dimple is in the area where the spokes meet the rim.The point where the painted center stops & the aluminum section (rim) starts.There is a sunken(dimple) at that very piont.See pic.A Non-dimpled wheel just has that area flush.

 

When painting the center, what is the best way to get in between the spokes?