How-To: Re-Finish 3 Piece Wheels

[Jukka]

So I have taken on the task of refinishing a set of wheels I recently purchased.

Anyways, so as I start taking them apart and refinish them, I will post up the how-to procedures and explain the process so that if someone else feels advantageous and wants to try it them selves, they can with some guidance.

On that note, I am not responsible for your actions, so if you decide to use this guide, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!


So, lets get started shall we?

I started off by purchasing a set of old school Enkei RS-Evolutions in 16x7 from a guy who's owned them since new. I didn't know they were 3 piece at the time of purchase, but made the happy discovery soon there after.



When I decided to take on the task of refinishing them, I had to figure out what I was gonna do for them, colour wise. So I am planning on doing polished lips, gunmetal faces, polished hardwear, black barrels.

So the first step I took with them was washing them/getting rid of most of the brake dust on the wheels.

I use a microfiber wheel brush and use Auto Glym wheel cleaner, that works really well. But feel free to use what you want.

The second step was getting the junk tires off the wheels.

3rd step is to remove the bolt in valve stem. On these particular wheels, they required a 9/16th wrench to crack off the bolt on the inside barrel.
Once the bolt is removed, I removed the stem with a bit of force, and a bit of WD40. They should come out relatively easily, but the seals I had were pretty much welded to the barrel.

The next step was to clean up the valves them selves. When they came out, they were pretty oxidized.

So to clean them up, I used a stainless steel wire brush

after the oxidization and dirt was taken off, I hit them up with some Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish to give them a great shine


and that's where I'm at right now. The next step will be tomorrow of breaking down the wheels into the three pieces and from there, start the refinishing process.

[Jukka]

So, heres the first steps of breaking down the wheels into the 3 pieces.

With my wheels, they are bolted together as the barrels, then the lips, then the faces. So this means there is 1 silicone bead that needs to be cut, but I will get into this further in a bit.

What you'll need to seperate the wheels will be the following tools:
Penetrating Spray

^^This stuff is awesome, it comes out in a foam pretty much
A wrench for the back side of the hardwear, in my case a 10 mm box wrench
A socket for the head of the hardwear on the inside of the lip. Alot of wheels will either run 12 point sockets or may have a special tool that is required (OZ, BBS, etc). In the case of these Enkei's, they have a E12 Inverted Torx head (pain in the ass to figure out what it was).

Socket

and a exacto/pen/hobby knife to cut the silicone bead that seals the wheel.
So to get started, lay your wheels face down on something that won't damage the surface of them (IE cardboard, newspaper, towel)

Once they are down and are secure, start spraying down all the nuts and bolts...

Spray them down until they are completely drenched, the more lube the easier the bolts will be to remove. You have to remember that depending on how old the wheels are (these are about 15-20 years old) there will be a ton of crud and corrosion.

Now just let them stew in the lube for a few hours.

Now using your wrench for the nuts on the back side, try and loosen up the nuts so that it will be easier to remove when you go to fully seperate the hardwear.

Thats about as far as I got last night before I hit a road block (didn't have the E10 socket I needed). But I will be splitting one rim tonight (hopefully) and I'll take lots of pictures.

As for the refinishing, I also purchased the stuff required to refinish the lips...

[Jukka]

So back to the wheel separation. I found that the E12 socket had too much of a bevel on the end, so it wouldn't grab the hardware as it was, so I broke out the deremel and cut the socket down a bit...


So I started to pull the hardwear out and I found its easier to use the socket ontop to just stop the bolts from rotating and using the wrench to loosen the nuts on the backside of the wheel.

After about an hour and a bit (and 28 bolts later), the bolts were out,
*I didn't get a pic of the bolts completely out, but heres during the process*

I also pulled the "Enkei" and "RS-Evolution" patches off the wheel its self using the edge of a razor knife (they are held in by doublesided tape)
Once all the bolts where out, I used a piece of wood and a deadblow hammer on the face of the wheel to pop it out of place.

Now I got a full shot of what I have to deal with when I refinish the barrels


Now off to strip the faces and start buffing the lips. I still need to seperate the barrel and the lip.

Also a quick tip, when your pulling the wheels apart, the best thing to do is label the wheel, lip, barrel, hardware and stickers...


I'll post up the rest of the process as it comes. I'm only going to be doing 1 wheel at a time as well.

[Jukka]

I started to strip the wheels down to bare metal. So far I have only got the one face near completion.
What I used to strip them down...
Gel Style Paint stripper (I couldn't find the aircraft aluminum stripper that alot of people like using, but this stuff worked great)
A set of cheap paint brushes ($1.13 from the dollar store)
Aluminium baking tins (5 for $1.13 at the dollar store)


So I essentially brushed the paint stripper onto the entire face of the center..I first used light coats
First Application:

After a quick once over with a scraper and another coat...

Its now down to bare metal, still has a few tiny spots that need to be hit with the paint stripper again and the backside of the face as well. But this shows you how to get the wheel down to bare metal to start refinishing them with not a whole ton of work. Next step, I'll post the coating of the centers and how I start working on the lips and barrels.