(S) Alloy Wheel Refurb guide :D

Hey all...
I recently re-furbed a set of 14" Abarth alloy wheels to replace a set of 15"s that are currently on my sei.. The job wasn't that hard to do, so i thought i would put a little guide up of how we did it, incase anyone is thinking about the process themselves.

Things we used for the job... (budget £60 to refurb the full set)

Wide Masking Tape (3 rolls)
Halfrauds Wet & Dry 240 Grit Paper (2 Packs)
Halfrauds Wet & Dry 1200 Grit Paper (1 Pack)
Halfrauds Primer Large Can (1 Can)
Halfrauds Clear Laquer Large Can (1 can)
Halfrauds Colour Paint (2 Cans)
Filler (metallik or p38) - Using as minimal as possible
Kitchen Towel

If your looking to remove the tyre, budget approx £20 to remove the tyres, and £8 a wheel for fitting and balancing. We found we didnt need to remove the tyres..

Estimated time to complete job - 8 hours.

We bought more paint than suggested above, but ended up with a lot left over so if you do buy more to be on the safe side, keep your reciept.

What we did..

Firstly we deflated all the tyres and masked the tyres off completely.. Pushing the tape under the rim, working the tape around the edge, and then covering the whole tread, to save the tyre from any over spray.

We then took each wheel one by one and sanded all over with 240 wet and dry... We did this dry as water would only cause problems with the masking tape that we had applied to the wheel. Basically you need to remove the top shiny coat of paint, and flat out as much as the curbing as possible. We spent around 1 hour + on each rim.

Once this has been completed, its time to repair any curbing that the sanding hasn't been able to get rid of. In my case, this was quite a lot.

Mix up a small amount of the filler, and apply to the damaged areas. We over filled our parts so when we sanded the filler back it would be smooth and not requiring another skim to cover small pin-holes etc.

Remove the filler with the 240 grit back until it is smoothed in with the rest of the wheel.. You want to remove as much filler as possible, and not leave any steps in between the filler and rest of the wheel. This is the most important stage, as any mistakes made now will be highlighted when the paint is applied, so make sure the wheel is 100% smooth and your happy with it. (we didn't do all our lips of the rim's 100%, due to not having the time as we only had a day to do the whole process, but we took 99% of all the imperfections out).

We used a hoover to remove any dust from between the rim and tyre, and then cleaned the rest with dry kitchen towel.

The wheels are now ready for primer....

Apply the primer in light coats (giving around 10-15 mins between each coat depending on the weather and drying times), concentrating on the nooks, crannys and lip of the wheel first. Apply at least 4 good coats of primer to each wheel, and then leave for around an hour.

Sand the wheels back with 1200 wet and dry to key the surface ready for the coloured paint... In our case we used Merc Brilliant Silver...

As with the primer, follow the same process, light coats and concentrate on the nooks and crannys.... Just be extra careful as the colour paint is thinner, and more likely to run than the primer... We found the drying times to be the same as the above also.

You now have two options. You could eave the paint to fully cure over 24-48 hours, or carry on which we had to do, as we only had the day off, and im very unpatient lol.
We gave the wheels around an hour to dry , and applied several coats or laquer in the same process as the previous paint.. thin coats and leaving to dry between coats...

You are supposed to rub the silver paint down with 1200 grit before applying the laquer to get a really good shiny finish when the laquer is applied... we chose not to do this as the paint was a bit too silver for us, and wanted to dull them down a little to look more standard as in the fiat silver they came in originally.

The wheels now need leaving to dry fully....

As the wheels were going to be in a poor environment as all wheels are, being covered in dirt, brake dust etc, we gave the wheels a good few coats of polish.. infact 7 coats....

Fisrtly with a colour restorer (polish with a tiny amount of grit in)... this was to smooth out the clear laquer removing any spray dust etc. We then gave the wheels two coats of silver t-cut, and then two coats of normal wheel polish, and then finally two coats of mer alloy wheel wax... Obviously you dont need to polish them as much as we did, but i wanted to make sure the wheels were completly sealed and as shiny as possible lol.

I would reccomend leaving the wheels off for a few days if possible....

Finally, clean up after yourself and enjoy a well earned Tea break....

Feel free to remove post from the forum if needs be, as ive only just noticed a similar post in the guides section lol

yours is a good guide.

im sure it will come in handy to someone trying to do a refurb on abarth alloys. At elast its more specific towards them

You can always add it to the existing guide: maybe Custard will come along when he has the time/energy, etc. and pull them together.

wow quite a transformation! i should do this in the near future :O

two thumbs up m8

i dont understand why people do loads of dusting coats of primers and paints it just attracts dirt between coats. do a good wet coat of each, wet flat the primer or dry flat it even with 6 or 8 hundred and hit with your colour then let flash dry and lacquer it much quicker and a lot less crap

ditto but remember most people dont do it for a living and most guides/books are often aimed at complete novices! look goood tho!

guides in the guides section please