TwinTurbo.NET: Nissan 300ZX forum - Reconditioning 3-piece wheels. Work Equip 18"
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Subject Reconditioning 3-piece wheels. Work Equip 18"
     
Posted by Z32POWER.com on May 21, 2006 at 5:51 PM
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Message So I bought a set of wheels off of ebay knowing that they were in rough condition with the ambition of reconditioning them. I was originally planning on doing the center section in white, but no one makes a pearl white powdercoat. Also, I am planning on selling these, so the market for someone that wants white centers is a lot smaller than someone that wants black.

These came from Japan, I bought them off of RBMotoring (skyline importer) on ebay. The ebay name of the seller is "jdmautohouse"

So here is how the wheels looked when they came to me. The lips were all curbed to hell and back, and the centers had gunmetal powdercoating that looked pretty rough.

The first step was to disassemble the wheels and start working of refinishing the lips. I started by using a flapper wheel on the lips to knock down the curb rashes. I then took heavy duty paint remover to the rest of the lip to remove all the clearcoat.

After all the sanding, I used a new eastwood buffing motor with flexible shaft to polish all the lip and remove the remaining imperfections. Once the polishing was done, I used some pre-painting prep to clean the lips, and then clearcoated them with Eastwoods bare metal clearcoat.

And the worst part of the whole process was cleaning each individual bolt. I used a brass bruss to clean off the brake dust and corrosion from the chrome finish. About 200 bolts, each took about 5 mins to clean.

And the final product. I powdercoated the center cention in high gloss black, which turned out fantastic. I love the look of these wheels now.

Here are the meats that are going on them. Toyo Proxes T1-R 285 rear 245 front

So was it worth all of the work? Maybe... I put about 30 hours of work into them, so I am not sure. I know the wheels are very rare with the stepped lips, and I love the stepped look so much more than the flat lip look. It gives a lot more attention to the lip area. The wheels are 18x9.5 rear and 18x8.5 front.

I'll have some pics mounted on the car coming very soon...
     
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