My exip mesh wheel refurb thread

Hi, 
    
      I bought some exip mesh wheels from eBay to replace my ats
      classics as they were too small for daily use. Here is a pic
      of what they look like at the moment:
    
     
    The plan is to strip off the black paint on the face of the wheels, and although the clear coat has been removed by a previous owner, there are still a few spots where the clear hasn't come off. I am going to hit this with mangers paint and varnish stripper. I have bought a little budget polishing kit with 3 wheels and compounds and a drill adapter for a tenner. I have also got a load of wet and dry. This is to do the face and lip. The plan is to strip off the black paint on the face of the wheels, and although the clear coat has been removed by a previous owner, there are still a few spots where the clear hasn't come off. I am going to hit this with mangers paint and varnish stripper. I have bought a little budget polishing kit with 3 wheels and compounds and a drill adapter for a tenner. I have also got a load of wet and dry. This is to do the face and lip. This is what I aiming for!    Hmm. It appears that factory the faces were not painted. When I chipped off some of the paint, you can see the well defined edges of the factory paint. 
      So I got bored and started attacking them with 180 grit. Didn't want to use stripper as I don't plan on repainting between the mesh. 
   
     
    Getting there! I am getting a hook and loop disc for a 4.5" grinder tomorrow and some sanding pads for it. It will make the job a lot easier. And I'll fix the curbing. Only one wheel is bad, the rest have practically none. Then I'll hit them with wet and dry, 240 then 320 then 500,800,1200. I'll use soapy water. When that's done I'll use the two finer compounds. The sisal mop and coarse compound seems aggressive! When I have finished ill seal them with poorboys wax to help prevent corrosion, as clear coat won't stick to the polished surface. Oh and one more thing. The rears are et13, and this is what they look like with a 10mm spacer. The fronts are crazy, et42 this is with 20mm of spacing (2x10mm for mock up)  (I like that picture!) So since I want them flush with the arches I want some 30mm spacers. The rear wheels on the fronts are perfect What's odd is the centre bore is different between front and rear too!So since 30mm hub centric spacers appear to be like 100 quid, unless I got steel ones, I plan to get an aluminium billet and machining up some spacers. Should be fine, as long as I get the faces parallel and the bolt pattern perfect. Unless someone has some for sale? Oh and I need new wheel bolts too,  pretty sure they have a different taper Comments and criticism welcome!! Cheers Rob 

Morning Rob,

They seem to have come up nice after your efforts. I think they're a nice set of rims and will look good once finished. Good luck with them mate.

Cheers, got a velcro disc for the angle grinder today, and a load of sanding discs. Ill attack them tomorrow, see how they come up!

decided to get them then in the end then looking good so far though mate, your efforts will definitely pay off when finished! good luck with the progress  

Yeah, finally made up my mind! Used the velcro sanding disc for the grinder today, really good tool, stripped the other 3 wheels. Couldn't get right to the edge, but it gave a good helping hand. If you catch an edge though, the disc destroys itself!
I also sorted out all of the curbing. I just blended it in, as I could not fill them, cos they are staying bare. You wouldnt notice unless you got close to the wheels, and nobody would do that anyway  

how's the refurb going bud? got any progress pics?
above sounds good though, i bet it was a lot quicker with the grinder than by hand!

Yeh, I'll grab some pics tomorrow. They are looking better! Just now need to go up through the grades and polish. 

I made a start on the spacers too. 

Im looking to do this to my exip alloys. Im going for gold centres and polished rim. Have you finished them now?

Decided I haven't got the patience for these kinda jobs. Getting bored, they are getting there though. I probably will just work up to 600 grit then try the mops. Problem is if I get them nicer, they'll just go dull again, cos I won't be clear coating. 

You could clear coat them yourself as well though? Rattle can, with wet flatting, and final mop comes up nice

Don't you need aomething for the clearcoat to bite onto though? Like a rougher or diamond cut finish.

My Le Castelettes are mirror polished and laquered.

relaquering just leads to respidering, getting them professionally diamond cut and powdercoat clear laquered. Any laquer you put on a polished finish will dull the reflection straight away

Diamond cutting le castelettes would spoil them in my opinion.

Mine are plenty shinny as it is…

Plus there is available wheel laquer specific. Not sure on the differences.

On a polished surface you need to use an acid etched laquer so that it will stick properly

I was just going to use some of the poorboys sealant stuff, if I ever growing round to finishing these. I just have to be in the right mood to get on with things like this. 

Ok finally finished one wheel, took about 4 or 5 hours today. Need to get some more wet and dry, ill try and do one every day this week, then get them balanced and the tracking done after adjusting ride height. Fairly happy with the results, but I think I would pay someone to do it in future, or I might die from boredom! Hopefully the next 3 will be quicker as I will know what I am doing a bit more.

They look lovely!

That looks brill mate. You've got much more patience than me