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Dave,

All you say about the types of lacquer, wheel finishes, etc. etc. is great info. and really useful. My only observaion in all this is that the post that I made and methods posted (and used by Nerra) are targetted at memebers wanting to have a go and use readily available materials. The goal here is for people to get a reasonable finish and limited costs, bearing in mind that some of the posts refer to having no machine tools, etc. and in other refurb threads are working outside, and wanting to start 'today', so there can be diminishing returns in chasing down quality products.

I wanted a seriously good finish so actually left my 'stars' with a pro where it took him a few days to strip, refinish, apply base black, bake them, wet paint chrome and lacquer.

cj

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking that then! Thanks for the info Dave - very useful I agree - but very much in-depth I feel, possibly more than I was expecting. I'm in a similar position to CJ/Nerra in wanting a good finish while keeping to a tight budget (while possessing less practical ability I feel!). Although I said I'm less keen on powdercoating, I was very happy with the finish on my previous car's wheels after powdercoating. Bearing in mind that cost me £150 for 4 wheels including tyre removal and refitting, DIY'ing it will have to be significantly cheaper for me to justify the effort LOL.

I'm in the process of polishing up some mountain-bike parts back to bare metal, and bought a can of "No Nonsense clear lacquer for metal surfaces" from screwfix for <£3.00. If that turns out OK on them then I might even consider using it for the alloys if I decide to polish up the lips and inner surfaces.

Ally

By no means think you need a two pack laquer or anything, I was just pointing out the differences

There are good cheap products in those links that are for the home DIY user, aerosol application and not hugely expensive at all.

The Deutsche Silver aerosol is cheap/easy to use, and is ideal for those who want OE colouring/finish if they need to do their stars, and is also aerosol application.


As they say, the hardest work is in the preparation, and you are spending lots of money and time getting the rims/inners polished up and clean, seperated etc, so where is the harm in buying a decent laquer in an aerosol for £10 that is designed for over polished metal car wheels? Just seems like investing in your finish (despite it actually costing about the same anyway)

Well worth buying it and waiting for it to come through than rushing out to use an inferior product after investing all that time in preparation! Fair do's if you've used a general purpose laquer already, but there are ones that work better over polished metals for the same price, just you'll have to order it and wait a few days (just like for the metal polishing pads/soaps )

Dave

Do they work better though Dave? I recently bought some Hammerite aerosol paint to do my van wheels thinking it would be better quality than Halfords own brand and it turned out to be complete rubbish. Don't always believe what you read on the tin

If BMW's own laquer can't hold up then I doubt some random lacquer with a special label will do much better.

excellent work!

Nerra wrote:Do they work better though Dave? I recently bought some Hammerite aerosol paint to do my van wheels thinking it would be better quality than Halfords own brand and it turned out to be complete rubbish. Don't always believe what you read on the tin

If BMW's own laquer can't hold up then I doubt some random lacquer with a special label will do much better.

There are distinct differences between a clear that will apply to a rough base coat and key nicely, and one that has to bond into/against a polished surface.

It's not a brand thing by any means. Buy Halfords own brand if they actually make one for use ontop of polished metals (from what I can see their clear is for use onto paints ideally)

Dave

I've got this stuff to try from Screwfix - it's meant for use on top of bare metal and is claims to be scratch resistant with good weather resistance. I've actually bought it for lacquering my bikes crank arms which I'm polishing up, and hadn't thought of it being suitable for the car wheels. I'll reserve judgement on it until I've tried it on my bike cranks though!

a11y wrote:I've got this stuff to try from Screwfix - it's meant for use on top of bare metal and is claims to be scratch resistant with good weather resistance. I've actually bought it for lacquering my bikes crank arms which I'm polishing up, and hadn't thought of it being suitable for the car wheels. I'll reserve judgement on it until I've tried it on my bike cranks though!

Interested to know if you have done yours yet ? wondered how you were getting on as i am about to start mine as soon as i have a free weekend.

easty- lovin that signiture

paddy wright wrote:easty- lovin that signiture

Cheers Paddy !......just a selection of old photos (nothing special as i am no photographer) and a bit of photoshop magic.

FAntastic info everyone, just one question, did you use a torque setting when putting the bolts for the centre stars back on?

I'm gonna try a self refurb on mine now, can't look any worse than they do now!

Thanks again

I've still not got around to doing anything about mine - my camper van conversion for the summer kinda took over . Was almost tempted to chuck the wheels in for a powdercoating but the lips really do need to be polished to look right, finally decided that for myself!

Torque settings: I was going to measure what torque is required when removing the bolts, and use the same torque when putting them back together. But, I think Phil (CJ) had posted some torque figures in another thread? Hoping he could repeat them in here as I couldn't find his post with the numbers...

I've been doing this stuff so long that I pretty much make up torques on the fly from 'feel' I don't recall ever finding any published BBS figures but undid some checked how much felt right, checked that as a torque and set the rest to it. 25 ft lbs sounds good to me.

Key is getting them all the same, tightening in a cross pattern sequence and using a drop of locktite. I'd also check them all after 500 miles

Thnx all makes perfect sense to me.
Just need some decent weather and I'm off and running!!

Nerra, would love to see a Maldives blue star in the wheels to match the rest of the bodywork!