Refurbing my 108's myself

[Nerra]

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.

 

[cj10jeeper]

Brilliant
I'm sure you're really pleased with the result, satisfaction of doing it and all at a cost of probably about £5 per wheel...

If you sand the wheel a little before you apply the Nitromors, then it will get into it quicker. You can also cover it to stop it drying out.

 

[Nerra]

Thanks for the tips cj10, yeah I did find the nitromors seemed to dry quite quick. I've still got 3 to go so any tips will be helpful.

 

[Wondermike]

Looks good. How did you finish the inside of the wheel, someone on here has refurbed wheels but with black painted inners which looks nice and easy to clean?

 

[cj10jeeper]

Not many tips needed you seem to have it well sorted.

I'd probably get a proper metal polish in bar form. I sourced one off Ebay (as a polishing kit) and it's the business and came with various mops and polish remover. You can skip the finer grade papers and just let that do the work

 

[paddy wright]

GOOD JOB

 

[Z4good]

Wow!!!!! Awesome job

 

[srhutch]

Looking very nice, my only question to you and CJ is did you lacquer the mating faces of the rim and star, and did they appear to be lacquered to begin with?

 

[easty027]

i have a quick question as i have been thinking of doing this for some time, what what anybody suggest for the inners, as mine are a combination of peeling laquer and a dark/grey mess, (bad description i know but i will see if i have a photo)

 

[cj10jeeper]

easty - They are disgusting. That really is a serious case of the alloy corroding.

It's up to you what you want to do. If you want the inner diamond cut and polished then I would have to suggest a proper wheel refurbisher for them. If it were me though I would get the lacquer off, smooth them down with decreasing grades of paper to say 400. Fill any deep pot holes, then prime and spray in steel wheels or a similar colour.

srhutch. The mating face is not as you might expect to be just inside the hollow lip, but is in fact the vertical face where the bolts clamp. The stars dont even touch the rims anywhere near the outer edge. In my case I polished the lip in an extra half inch to an inch and lacquered that. The actual mating face I sprayed silver, the same as the inner part of the rim. I doubt I'll have problems there.

Mine will break down where grit, kerbs or scratces damage the lacquer from the tyre edge.

 

[srhutch]

CJ the mating face to me is where the 20 bolt holes are, just wondered if this face was lacquered from the factory or when you refurbed as I owuld think you would want bare if possible to ensure clean flat fit.

 

[PaulN]

What a great job....

I dont think many people need to respray the innner, but alot of cleaning effort is normally required but hey ho.

Did you re-balance the wheel as the front come off or did you mark it and put it back on in the same position?

Lovely job anyway.

Cheers

PaulN

 

[srhutch]

What a great job....

I dont think many people need to respray the innner, but alot of cleaning effort is normally required but hey ho.

Did you re-balance the wheel as the front come off or did you mark it and put it back on in the same position?

Lovely job anyway.

Cheers

PaulN

The start will only go ack in one position because of the valve. :wink:

 

[cj10jeeper]

CJ the mating face to me is where the 20 bolt holes are, just wondered if this face was lacquered from the factory or when you refurbed as I owuld think you would want bare if possible to ensure clean flat fit.

Yep - that's the mating face. Just from previous post on other threads I think people believe the star is a tight fit into the rim.

On the OEM finish I'd say it was lacquered all over in one go, but difficult to tell as that's also the area where all the dirt and crud builds up. I just cleaned it down and flased some silver paint over it.

 

[Nerra]

Thanks everyone. Just to answer a few a questions...

I finished the inside of the wheel the same as the lip, which was sand > polish > clear laquer > wax. The inner part of the wheel was quite tough to get rid of the corrosion as the surface is quite heavely grooved or diamond cut.

Thinking back I can't actually recall if the mating face was laquered or not, I presumed it was but maybe not. As you can see it was in a bit of a state.

PaulN, no I didn't re-balance them but I never removed the weights and as srhutch pointed out, they can only go back one way because of the valve hole.

 

[srhutch]

On the OEM finish I'd say it was lacquered all over in one go, but difficult to tell as that's also the area where all the dirt and crud builds up. I just cleaned it down and flased some silver paint over it.

You mean with the star in, if thats the case no wonder the corrode

 

[Dreamer]

Look great.
Exactly what i did, but I painted the outer edge in Wurth Silver as I prefer it having the same finish as the center star.

 

[cj10jeeper]

On the OEM finish I'd say it was lacquered all over in one go, but difficult to tell as that's also the area where all the dirt and crud builds up. I just cleaned it down and flased some silver paint over it.

You mean with the star in, if thats the case no wonder the corrode

No of course not - with the star out.

 

[a11y]

Great job Nerra


CJ/Nerra,

I'd now really tempted to try a refurb myself, but have a couple of Q's about products:

- what exact lacquer did you use afterwards?

- CJ, you mention a polish kit - is it possible you could post more details of this or a link to the actual product?

- I don't have any power tools for attaching a rotary wire brush, etc: is it feasible to attempt this all by hand?

Cheers
Ally

 

[cj10jeeper]

Great job Nerra


CJ/Nerra,

I'd now really tempted to try a refurb myself, but have a couple of Q's about products:

- what exact lacquer did you use afterwards?

- CJ, you mention a polish kit - is it possible you could post more details of this or a link to the actual product?

- I don't have any power tools for attaching a rotary wire brush, etc: is it feasible to attempt this all by hand?

Cheers
Ally

Go to this post and you can see the 'how-to'
http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8199&hilit=108+refurbishment

Page one has a picture of the polishing kit, also a link to the supplier of star bits. Call Merlin, tell them what you want and they make a specific kit up for you - very helpful.

IMHO anything can be done without power tools, but it's the time and effort is disproportional. I used a couple of grades of grit to remove corrosion but them switched to power tools. You can get a battery rechargable hand drill from B&Q for £10 so why not? I'm fortunate that I have a bench stand drill and operate a long flexy drive from it giving me a useful and versatile polisher.