Rusty Wheels

[Rambo]

Hi,



All except one of my wheels look like this. Any advice to repair? Also does anyone know the specific colors on these wheels?

[baltobernie]

Bead- or sandblasting is the quickest way to remove the rust, but you can certainly use elbow grease and sandpaper.

A popular color choice as reported by several members of this forum is:
http://www.eastwood.com/ew-rally-wheel- ... hgodX6cLVQ

While you're removing the tires for this job, check the date codes. I t think the Pirelli P400 has been out of production for 10+ years.

[Rambo]

Bead- or sandblasting is the quickest way to remove the rust, but you can certainly use elbow grease and sandpaper.

A popular color choice as reported by several members of this forum is:
http://www.eastwood.com/ew-rally-wheel- ... hgodX6cLVQ

While you're removing the tires for this job, check the date codes. I t think the Pirelli P400 has been out of production for 10+ years.

Thanks for the reply. Can a angle grinder be used if I can not access a sandblaster? Yes, those tires are at least pre-2005 but the car has only gotten maybe 1000 or less miles since then. I inspected them closely for excessive dry rot and they seem to be ok.

[So Cal Mark]

if the rust is severe enough to weaken the wheels, you should replace them

[DieselSpider]

If the rust won't bead blast off or come off with a wire cup brush then like Mark said its time to replace the wheels. A grinding wheel should not be used to clean up a rim unless its just for an art project as a stationary decoration.

On the tires after 5 years best practice is to dismount the tires to have them inspected internally every year by a certified technician and then at 10 years of age throw them away. Personally I do not feel this is practical since this size tire is so inexpensive. Even if a tire over 5 years old does not blow out on you they still have changed so that they do not grip the road and handle heat as well as when they were new so they are not worth that risk alone.

[Rambo]

Thanks everyone for the help. I'll try to clean the rust off and see what i find. I was researching tire of the stock size and could not find any qaulity tire like pirelli, etc. All i found was kuhno. Is there another size that can be used?

[Rambo]

Would the fine crimped wire brush or the thicker knotted type wire brush work best?

[RRoller123]

The Kumho's are actually fine, they hold well on the corners and are inexpensive. (There is a tremendous affliction of tire angst and snobbiness in the world today. Rivals Dengue and Zika). Sumitomo makes a good tire too.

If you have access to a blast booth, they can be blasted, cleaned and painted and will come out quite well:

Nick has these now!

Clean and Blast:



Prime:



Paint:

[Rambo]

Ok, so i decided that since the back of the wheels had no rust and because i'm still undecided about the tires that i would just repair the front of the rim with the tire on. So first off i got a wire cup brush, sand paper, and a wire brush bit to remove all the old paint and rust on the worst out of the four wheels.



Next i primed and painted the whole wheel with silver.



After three days i taped off the silver and painted in the black parts



Before and After:



Three more to go!

[AriK]

Really sharp! Amazing what a little bit of paint and elbow grease can do. Keep on truckin!

[RRoller123]

NICE!!!

[DieselSpider]

The wheels look nice however the tires are still over 10 years old which is 5 years past the ticking time bomb stage regardless of how nice they look on the outside. On a warm day at highway speeds they stand a very high chance of blowing out so you are rolling the dice and taking a really big chance if you loose at that game.

Tires are one place where its not worth gambling. Almost 3,000 people in Florida loose on that gamble every year in a severe enough manner that it makes it on the books while many others are more fortunate and have the tires fail at low speed or go flat while stopped with little to no damage or injury. You, your passenger and any bystanders who may be impacted are worth far more than the relatively inexpensive tires required on a 124 Spider.

Here in Florida there are a number of law firms pushing the legislature to make it illegal to repair or resell tires that are over 5 years old or even sell a vehicle with tires over 5 years old private sale or not its become that serious of a problem.