HarryB's Strato blue NB2

[HarryB]

Update; wheels are ready and on the car! Work was done by a local place/tires and wheels shop, which I had used for some work-related stuff in the past and was cooperative enough. Owner's son (around 20) is now in charge of the powder coating side of the business, and he was very enthusiastic of undertaking the work. I explained to him as much as I could that I wanted to keep the wheels as original as possible. That meant polishing and not chroming the outer lips, cleaning the inner barrels but keeping the original SSR/Watanabe stickers and cleaning/reusing the original rim bolts if possible. Rim nuts were far too gone due to salt of UK roads and brake dust, so they were replaced with brand new ones.

He first made sure the wheels ran true. One lip was slightly bent, so it was pressed back in shape. Then he welded all curb rashing to fill it, and cut back. Lips were polished to a mirror-like finish, centers disassembled and sandblasted to remove the previous flaking coat of paint and tons of primer. After that, the centers were powdercoated a champagne, sand-like textured powder that was custom-ordered. Really cannot describe the colour/feel of it, and it cannot be easily put into photos; the colour is really sparkling and deep but matte at the same time. Gold sand is the best description I can come up with.

Before/after



Polished bolts



End result, out on the sun, the colour is simply amazing up close!



...and not too bad in the shade either!



And on the car!



Since the SUV height and the ding on the hood bugged me, did a quick & dirty attempt on PS until I respray the car and install my Maruha coilovers



Quite happy overall!