A Second Chance at Life

As most the wheels I buy and collect are from the 70's and 80's many of them are in pretty poor condition. 30 odd years of use and neglect leave them rusted, dull, dirty, has the paint fading and flaking off. But with some TLC and a lot of time, there is hope to give them a second chance and bring them back to their once glorious condition.

Take these SSR MkIIs I restored a little while ago. They were in pretty good shape compared to most wheels I buy but defiantly still needed some work.

They were very dull, with machine finished lips, non painted centres and random gold hardware.

The first thing I do is remove all the old hardware and strip the centres, but as these wont painted they didnt need to be stripped.

Next they are high speed wet sanded, as these were in relatively good condition I started with a 360grit and worked upto 2500. You can see the substantial difference this makes! It will clean any small nicks, scratches, rust or oxidation off the lips.

Both wheels are now wet sanded. Looking much better but still pretty dull, and defiantly dont have that mirror polished look everyone wants. 

Below shows the comparison of the wet sanded vs the high speed polished. You can see the high speed polishing is what makes the majority of the difference. In saying that the wet sanding still plays a critical role in making them come up that nice, skipping the wet sanding will result in a much poorer result. 

Ahh both polished! But now the un-painted centres look very out of place. This is where I always have trouble picking a colour! I do like to keep them original so normally try to pick an factory colour. In this case I decided on red. Wasnt too sure at first but after seeing the final result I was very happy I picked red!

Now for the masking! I normally air brush the centres of my wheels, but as mk2s have a fair large face, and no intricate places I just used a touch up spray gun. The final result was just as nice, and took half the time!

All painted! and almost done! Just need to give them a final hand polish and install new hardware.

And all done! =)

I am planning on doing a more detailed write up including all the products and methods I use to restore my wheels, so if you have some dull tired old wheels laying around you want to restore but don't know where to start, keep and eye out for that. =)