Looking to refinish Panasports, need advise

[90blue]

Anybody have any experience with refinishing wheels ?
The machined lip on these Panasports seems corroded. It is under the clearcoat.




Thanks in advance

[joe morreale]

I used paint stripper from Home Depot to remove the clear from my polished wheels. It should work for yours. You would have to paint them or get powderccoated. Expect anywhere up to 50-80 to powercoat. If you strip them you may find that the base metal has pock marks. You'll have to sand it smooth. I would sand with 120, 220.340 Then 500 git paper.

If you do strip them you'll have to get the tires off. The stripper will eat them up. Be real careful with the stripper. I wore big black rubber gloves and goggles. A little stripper splashed on my arm. Even though I washed it off in a minute or two it bubbled my skin up. Took a month to heal.

If you paint them think ahead, how hot do my wheels get and will the paint I use hold up. Paint the back side of the wheel first. If you just sand what you have and paint them mask the tires by sticking playing cards along the lip of the rim. Tape won't work. If you sand down to bare aluminum cover all bare spots with a self etching primer. Same thought on the pock marks if yu paint them.

[Demon I Am]

Aircraft Brand stripper works very well. Use it outside (highly toxic), and use heavy gloves with it (highly corrosive). I refinished a set of Daisy's with minimal effort.

shoes 006 by Tony Driver, on Flickr

[— freedomgli —]

When I had mine refinished the service provider simply chucked each wheel in the lathe and turned the lip down a few thousandths of an inch to get back to clean metal. Then he polished them and left them bare. The downside with this method is that it can crate a little edge where the polished lip meets the spoke. Also, you can't be lazy or else the polished lip will become discolored and stained. With the valve stem in place it's harder than it looks to keep them polished as it takes a lot of elbow grease. Without the valve stem installed it's easy to jack the car up, bolt the wheel to hub and put the car in gear to spin it at 90rpm (1st gear idle speed ~5mph) to polish with a rag and buffing compound. Next time I'd probably treat the polished lips with a sealant specifically for maintaining polished aluminum finishes.

[90blue]

Thanks. It is as I suspected, work.
I would rather not refinish the entire wheel, just the lip.
The powder coating seems to be very thick on the wheel as I am unable to read the casting numbers or the name very easily.

Anybody have any experience with a lathe in removing the corroded lip coating and maybe some of the corrosion ?

[90blue]

When I had mine refinished the service provider simply chucked each wheel in the lathe and turned the lip down a few thousandths of an inch to get back to clean metal. Then he polished them and left them bare. The downside with this method is that it can crate a little edge where the polished lip meets the spoke. Also, you can't be lazy or else the polished lip will become discolored and stained. With the valve stem in place it's harder than it looks to keep them polished as it takes a lot of elbow grease. Without the valve stem installed it's easy to jack the car up, bolt the wheel to hub and put the car in gear to spin it at 90rpm (1st gear idle speed ~5mph) to polish with a rag and buffing compound. Next time I'd probably treat the polished lips with a sealant specifically for maintaining polished aluminum finishes.

You beat me to it ! Thanks

[— freedomgli —]

If you don't want to refinish the entire wheel and/or dodn't have access to machine tools you could just make a simple tool out of wood that has the same profile as the lip and then use that tool to hold the sandpaper against the wheel lip as it turns. Remove the valve stem and turn each wheel on the car up on jack stands Ferris Bueller style. Start with a fine grit and move progressively to more course grits until you find the finest grit paper that will remove the old clear coat. If you start out with super coarse paper you might end up putting way more scratches in the lip than you would have otherwise, which will make polishing them out that much more time consuming and difficult.

[90blue]

I tried that on a different set of wheels. The coating was incredibly thick and tough. All I did was burn things, including fingers. I like the lathe idea better.