Hello All,
The refresh of my 03 STR is moving along nicely. A few surprises and a delay or two but with the help of the Forum, making good progress.
We are now addressing a few cosmetic items. A local shop replaced the head liner. DentX franchise did a great job with a few dings. The nearby Kia dealer had a great detail shop at a killer price. The OEM lugs had to go after a couple of the "tin hats" failed and left me with a challange of removing them.
Anyone suggest a method for refinishing these Zesus wheels? the silver paint is pitting. Thinking of powder coating rather than paint although a paint finish has lasted 7 years. Chrome is not my firts choice for this very green Leaper. Of all my current cars, this one is fast becoming my first choice
Phil

 

If you can find out what the paint code is for the original finish I would go that route. Why mess with perfection on a wheel that perfectly compliments the vehicle.

Or put another way "why fix something that isn't broken" by changing the colour. I cringed when I saw someone had painted a set of Zeus wheels white. Jaysus that looked wrong...

 

 

I nice powdercoat on a green car would be hyper black color. The color is like a polished black metal rather than chrome or flat/gloss black paint. It's subtle racy but classy and would look great with green.

 

Hahahahaha I know who that was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I thought about having mine done right after I bought the car last year. A local guy was going to put the car on jack stands (right away that made me nervous). Then he would dismount all the tires, strip the wheels and powder coat them, re-mount and balance the tires. $650. An enticing offer in some ways.

Then I took a look at that article about spot refinishing them. That worked really well for me using the Wurth products but this last winter left some nasty pot holes on the roads and now I've got to do one rim again. This is going to be an ongoing battle.

Spot repairs with the powder might be an issue. Getting a nice smooth finish with no pebble or orange peel can also be an issue. See their work first. It will hold up better except for post hole or curb damage. I've done both with this car. It's the most susceptible car to this sort of damage that I've ever owned.

Currently I'm in the middle of refinishing a set of 40+ year old mag alloy wheels and this is a lot more challenging due to the nature of the mag alloy. It was $40 each to blast them properly. I'm going to do a chemical conversion coating, then apply a zinc chromate primer and many coats of an acrylic enamel on top of that. These are not perfectly cast wheels like to day's wheels. They're sand cast so there's some junk to hide. I'm sure than the STR wheels would be easier.

But I can spot repair these if need be. Something to think about.

Where I live chrome wheels would be just such a disaster

Bob S.

 

Michael... When I saw the pictures when you did that I thought "ugggg".... Then I saw your picture of the car lined up at a drag-way in the mug shots thread... From a natural angle and look I have to admit I think it looks really good...I was going to comment on that post..but here it is for the rest to see...




PhilT... I would do what BobS. is talking about... I've seen powder coated wheels before and they look like a rough casting. Also, please don't paint them black...It is becoming so played out... A darker silver..like the Quartz factory color, would look nice.. A good paint shop could paint them any color you want and make them durable for road use...

 

From all of the good advice and my own experience, I will repaint these. I have powder coating a lot of bits with my Lotus resto and minor repairs are a challenge. The OEM Lotus steel wheels were first PC but flexed the point that there was some cracking. That I swapped those for some repainted ones.
Mike, what did you use to paint yours...?

Phil

 

I used engine paint with wheel clear coat. The nice thing about painting your wheels is if you get tired of the color, you can always change them! Although I would not recommend white, as it is a PITA to keep clean

 

Also vote paint over PC. Engine paint is durable although sometimes color choices are limited, specifically if you want a metallic. Most parts stores sell dedicated wheel paint these days, so think about going that route or look online.

I've probably painted 10 or 12 sets of wheels. The quality of the look is made or missed during the prep stage. It would be preferable to have the tires off, but satisfactory results can be had with them on and some careful masking.

I like to first do a light scuff/sand on the original finish with a scotch brite pad or similar. Then clean with paint prep product, then wash with just plain water and let dry. I would go with 3 coats, maybe 4 but no more for your color coat. 1500 grit wet sand after the first and last color coat. Then 2 layers of clear.

Best of luck and looking forward to seeing the results.

 

Mike, my wheels are pitted and rashed. My painter isn't sure how to apply the original color. Can the Zeus wheels be lightly sanded then just painted? Uhh...Mike...Those white wheels....

 

Duplicolor makes a line of wheel specific paints. I've used that on some track wheels before and I was able to spray it (tires off) outdoors in the sun with really good results. It was very durable stuff too.

I'm going to try another product recently recommended to me by the guy who blast my 40+ year old Lamborghini wheels. Those wheels have an incredible number of casting irregularities. The product is a used by paint & body guys and it's called Icing. You get the idea. It's a lot easier to spread and fill small stuff with than Bondo or some other other metal content epoxy fillers.

 

Thanks Bob.

 

Thanks Chris. Great info.

 

Hey Seth- yes your wheels can be lightly sanded but that probably won't take out all of the casting pits and bumps - depends on how bad it is, but most of them. Bob might have something going there with that Icing product. I wouldn't go with normal spot/glazing putty on a wheel application.

So, your guy can probably do a pretty good job of prepping with maybe 400 grit initial sand, then a few coats of high-build primer to help fill any pits, then sand it all flush. I bet that would get em' looking good enough.

As for curb rash - that you may have to have a pro wheel repair shop take a look at. I've had aluminum lipped wheels (Ronals) turned before to smooth out rash, but it all depends on how bad it is. Those wheels would be much easier to fix than a Zeus design though, so get an expert to look at them if they are bad. If not real bad you can likely work out the scrape marks with sanding and maybe a little light grinding.

Throw some pics up of the wheels eh...

 

I used some spot putty to take care of the scuffs on my wheels. Seems to have worked ok thus far, but did require a bit of work.

 

Some really good advice from those who have posted before, for sure.

I've done several sets of rims myself as well as a few spot repairs.
I'd suggest using Wurth products as I did a set with some cheap paint and it didn't turn out as well as it should with exactly the same process......In this instance you do get what you pay for.

Preparation is key to the end result........sand, sand and then fill. Sand some more until an absolutely smooth and level surface is achieved before you even think about priming, painting etc.

Try using Wurth products for the primer, paint and lacquer, its well worth it.

Here's a quick post to a spot repair I did on a set for my A6....alloy_refurb

It's easily doable if you have a little time and patience and probably can do the set for around £60 / $95 and have product left over to do spot repairs if necessary.

Anyway, good luck with whichever route you decide to go down

 

Thanks Jim. Valuable advice for all.

 

Hi Jim,

That's essentially the same procedure as the one from that website that was mentioned on here a while back. It's what I did and it turned out pretty well. The problem is masking the rest of the wheel without leaving a hard line when doing the color coats. It was a bit of a pain because I had damage on more than the lip but just small stuff. I've got to do 3 wheels again! Argh! So this time I'm going to cut a circular masking shield for the inside diameter of the wheel and I'm hoping that with it raised above the wheel surface via stand-offs I'll get more of a blended transition instead of a hard line. Then the clear would go on with a smaller diameter shield so that the clear covers the blend and goes onto the original paint. We shall see ...

The Wurth stuff works well for the stock Jag color. If you're doing a completely different color there a number of products out there.

 

I realize this thread is a month old, but am ready to repair my wheels. Is the stock color Hyper Silver for the '03 Zeus?

And I was actually thinking of doing mine a slightly darker color. I have aftermarket silver ARS's on there now which look good with a little brake dust to make them darker. Someone mentioned hyper black, but I was thinking the BMW shadow chrome would look good as well.