Refurbing my 108's myself
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2009 5:34 pm
Hello good people
I decided to have a crack at refurbing my 108's myself. All my centers are in pretty good condition its just the infamous lip that has started to corrode quite badly. I thought I would have a crack at them as it would be hard to make them look any worse and if I could save myself £400+ and not have my Zed standing on bricks for over a week that would be a good thing.
Its also convenient for me as I can just do them one at a time (one a weekend or something) starting with the worst one.
I know that there are better methods and better tools for doing this job but hopefully this will help anyone that was thinking of trying to do their own with limited acces to specialist tools.
Materials/Tools used
Nitromors
Halfords Clear laquer
Halfords Wet sanding pack
Machine Mart wire rotary (for drill)
Halfords star set for 1/2" socket set
Autoglym HD wax
Socket set
Brasso
Steps Taken:
- Take the wheel off the car and wash.
- Split the rim. This was pretty easy, I took all the bolts out and found that the center wouldnt come out by hand so I put 3 equally spaced bolts back about a third in and then lightly taped the inner with a mallet and it popped off with ease.
- Mask the tyre with tape to prevent Nitromors from making contact with the tyre. I also had a damp cloth on hand should any spillage onto the tyre occur.
- Painted the nitro mors on with brush and left for 20 minutes.
- Washed and scraped the nitromors off using a scouring pad and bucket of soapy water.
- Repeated the above steps twice over (3 times in total).
- Started sanding off corrosion with 400 grit wet sand paper. Used the wire rotary attachment to attack the worst bits.
- Wet sanded entire rim working up from 400 grit paper through to 2500 grit (400, 800, 1200, 2500).
- Washed entire wheel and dryed.
- Polished using brasso and rotary Makita polisher
- masked up to prepare for clear laquer.
- Gave 3 coats of clear laquer
- Gave 2 coats of Auto Glym HD wax
- Reassembled wheel using loctite on the bolts
Feel free to ask any questions and I will update the thread appropriately.
I decided to have a crack at refurbing my 108's myself. All my centers are in pretty good condition its just the infamous lip that has started to corrode quite badly. I thought I would have a crack at them as it would be hard to make them look any worse and if I could save myself £400+ and not have my Zed standing on bricks for over a week that would be a good thing.
Its also convenient for me as I can just do them one at a time (one a weekend or something) starting with the worst one.
I know that there are better methods and better tools for doing this job but hopefully this will help anyone that was thinking of trying to do their own with limited acces to specialist tools.
Materials/Tools used
Nitromors
Halfords Clear laquer
Halfords Wet sanding pack
Machine Mart wire rotary (for drill)
Halfords star set for 1/2" socket set
Autoglym HD wax
Socket set
Brasso
Steps Taken:
- Take the wheel off the car and wash.
- Split the rim. This was pretty easy, I took all the bolts out and found that the center wouldnt come out by hand so I put 3 equally spaced bolts back about a third in and then lightly taped the inner with a mallet and it popped off with ease.
- Mask the tyre with tape to prevent Nitromors from making contact with the tyre. I also had a damp cloth on hand should any spillage onto the tyre occur.
- Painted the nitro mors on with brush and left for 20 minutes.
- Washed and scraped the nitromors off using a scouring pad and bucket of soapy water.
- Repeated the above steps twice over (3 times in total).
- Started sanding off corrosion with 400 grit wet sand paper. Used the wire rotary attachment to attack the worst bits.
- Wet sanded entire rim working up from 400 grit paper through to 2500 grit (400, 800, 1200, 2500).
- Washed entire wheel and dryed.
- Polished using brasso and rotary Makita polisher
- masked up to prepare for clear laquer.
- Gave 3 coats of clear laquer
- Gave 2 coats of Auto Glym HD wax
- Reassembled wheel using loctite on the bolts
Feel free to ask any questions and I will update the thread appropriately.