I have the 15 inch black bowling ball hubcaps and a couple of them fell off on the freeway. About a few days later I found them on the freeway on foot, but I honestly nearly killed myself. I guess I am lucky because #1 I found them and #2 I am still alive

But I never want to risk my life like that again!

Here is the question:
The black bowling ball caps were scratched up after I found them. But I am trying to find out how the black bowling ball caps were originally done black.I am not sure if they were painted black, powder coated black, or it was some other type of process. I get different answers from different people and I am confused. Does anyone know for certain how they came black out of the factory? I would really like it to be done as ORIGINAL.

Eric

 

I don't think it's possible to make them original. They appear to have some sort of plastic coating applied to them, and then they are painted on top of that. I had mine repainted again over the existing finish and they came out fine. BTW - you should do a search on google for how to zip tie them on after you get them repainted.

 

The hub cap covers were made out of prepainted aluminum sheets that were die stamped and formed and then crimped onto the plastic hubcap backing. If you look at the edges of an original hubcap they are the bare silver aluminum.

To do them as "original" it would take at least $200,000-300,000 in tooling to get new aluminum covers produced.

 

I have redone 5 sets, 4 were factory black. They very well may have been the aluminum shown, but the black material was vinyl, not paint. I was able to peel the material off with a little help from adhesive remover and on a few that were sunbaked, a heat gun. I had a place "wrap" them with high performance vinyl in the correct gloss and the only way you could tell them apart from the originals was if you took it off and studied the edges for the uniform seam around the outer and lug nut hole edges.

 

I would Zip tie them to the rims if I where you, cause they really don't hold very well and they are getting harder and harder to find.

 

The hubcaps that were damaged was scratched deep enough that it went to the alumanim. I am assuming there is no way to redo the vinyl material, but if there is, please everyone let me know. So would painting it really repair the damage in the hubcaps if the scratch is deep?

As far as the zip ties, I heard that I would need to drill a hole in the hubcaps, but I feel uncomfortable about drilling a hole in them. What do you think?

 

Yes it will require you to drill a hole thru them but I doubt you can really break them by doing it. Or you can check ebay for the replacement clips, I once read somewhere that GM made a faulty design making them fall of easily but then offered to replace the clips with the ones that would hold but I guess most didn't do so.