Anyone Here "Refresh" or Restore Their Rims?

Took a chance on ebay (not a big one at $28 shipped) that these used Honda caps would be close in color to the original Acura caps. They are indistinginguishable (see the oem Acura cap in the middle), so I won't need to do anything to them (Thx for your offer though webby).

Honda Caps.jpg

I will be light steel-wooling and hitting with a topcoat of clear, although they look pretty new as is. It's been too cold here without a heated garage to do anything. I have 4 coats of clear and they need one more.
 
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Wow....perfect match! Not expensive either. I sprayed mine and will be adding a red H sticker. Could you post a link to those caps? I wonder if they have red H ones.:think: I might order them if I'm not satisfied with my added stickers.

Can't wait to see these on your car!
 
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Pauly99to17 said:
Wow....perfect match! Not expensive either. I sprayed mine and will be adding a red H sticker. Could you post a link to those caps? I wonder if they have red H ones.:think: I might order them if I'm not satisfied with my added stickers.

Can't wait to see these on your car!
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Thanks.

Well, these were an ebay purchase of used caps from a Honda Pilot or CRV or something. It just so happens that on some of the upper models with alloys, Honda uses identically sized and painted rims/center caps of 2 and 3/4 inches as Acura's '06 S rims. The link to my ebay purchase is somewhere in this thread. I don't know where you'd get red H's. (webby?)
 
Well the "H" caps look new with a few coats of clear. One proble, maybe one of you can help with. One wheel has twice now, gone orange peel on me. last night when I hit it with a quick coat of clear (it sat in the shed all week). The clear was room temp, but the rim was prolly 45F cold. I figured that was it. So today I put the whheels out in the sun early, knocked the peel off w 500g and steel wool, then shot it with basecoat. I let it dry in th sun for hours and it did this again when I put clear on:

Orange Peel 1.jpg


Orange Peel 2.jpg
At least the other three look like this:

With Cap.jpg

Any ideas what went wrong?
 
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That's wrinkling not orange peel, the clear is reacting with either the base silver or the primer underneath. My guess is the primer, the solvents are lifting it off of the substrate, the solvents are too strong. Only thing I can suggest is to remove the affected material, re-apply your silver and then put the clear on in lighter coats. The rim as well as the material should be at room temperature or higher, as the solvents are blended to evaporate at the correct rate so you don't have sags or too dry a spray.

Painting in too cold a weather with a slow evaporating solvent will cause issues like runs, or the solvent lifting the primer surfacer.
 
Michael Hurd said:
That's wrinkling not orange peel, the clear is reacting with either the base silver or the primer underneath. My guess is the primer, the solvents are lifting it off of the substrate, the solvents are too strong. Only thing I can suggest is to remove the affected material, re-apply your silver and then put the clear on in lighter coats. The rim as well as the material should be at room temperature or higher, as the solvents are blended to evaporate at the correct rate so you don't have sags or too dry a spray.

Painting in too cold a weather with a slow evaporating solvent will cause issues like runs, or the solvent lifting the primer surfacer.
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Thanks! I'll bet it's just not warm enough yet. It was high of 54F today.
 
What you can try is to heat the cans up in a sink of fairly warm water, not boiling hot, this will increase the pressure of the propellant gas as well as the temperature of the resins and solvent, but for best results the rim should also be room temp or higher. Do you have a small heater that you could use to warm up the rim? If you use a large box over the rim with the heater in it, you can warm up the rim enough that you should be able to take it from there outside and paint it without it cooling off too much.

Also, make sure to shake the cans well before using, as this ensures that the solids are well dissolved in the solvents, most people don't shake the cans enough.
 
Michael Hurd said:
What you can try is to heat the cans up in a sink of fairly warm water, not boiling hot, this will increase the pressure of the propellant gas as well as the temperature of the resins and solvent, but for best results the rim should also be room temp or higher. Do you have a small heater that you could use to warm up the rim? If you use a large box over the rim with the heater in it, you can warm up the rim enough that you should be able to take it from there outside and paint it without it cooling off too much.

Also, make sure to shake the cans well before using, as this ensures that the solids are well dissolved in the solvents, most people don't shake the cans enough.
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I've kept the paint and clear in the house, now I'll keep that one rim inside too. I'll warm the paint can, but the problem could have something to do with being toward the end of the can. I'll also warm the clearcoat too. I was surprised there's no shaker ball in the clear cans. Once I'm done, I'm going to bring that rim in the house (my wife and daughter can't stand paint fumes) and march it up to the attic to dry. Once I have a good coat of clear on there, the rest should be easier.

BTW, do you think I should wipe down with paint thinner before each subsequent coat of clear? I'd been using steel wool but it is a b**** to try to get it all up, and and a tack rag seems to leave a residue.
 
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hotdogjohnny said:
I've kept the paint and clear in the house, now I'll keep that one rim inside too. I'll warm the paint can, but the problem could have something to do with being toward the end of the can. I'll also warm the clearcoat too. I was surprised there's no shaker ball in the clear cans. Once I'm done, I'm going to bring that rim in the house (my wife and daughter can't stand paint fumes) and march it up to the attic to dry. Once I have a good coat of clear on there, the rest should be easier.

BTW, do you think I should wipe down with paint thinner before each subsequent coat of clear? I'd been using steel wool but it is a b**** to try to get it all up, and and a tack rag seems to leave a residue.
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No, don't wipe it down between coats of clear with anything, including the tack rag. Once the silver is dry, wipe with the tack rag lightly before clearcoat. ( you don't push on the tack rag at all, just drag it along the surface to pick up the dust )

If the can is getting empty, the pressure of the propellant will be less than when it is full, so yes that can also have an effect on how well it atomizes the material. Warm up the can of spray paint and the rim, 2-3 coats of clear tops then let it dry for a 15-20 minutes before bringing it inside. Wait 10 minutes between coats of clear, and don't pile it on too thick.
 
Michael Hurd said:
No, don't wipe it down between coats of clear with anything, including the tack rag. Once the silver is dry, wipe with the tack rag lightly before clearcoat. ( you don't push on the tack rag at all, just drag it along the surface to pick up the dust )

If the can is getting empty, the pressure of the propellant will be less than when it is full, so yes that can also have an effect on how well it atomizes the material. Warm up the can of spray paint and the rim, 2-3 coats of clear tops then let it dry for a 15-20 minutes before bringing it inside. Wait 10 minutes between coats of clear, and don't pile it on too thick.
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Thanks in advance. :thumbsup:.
 
I've got no experience in wheel restoration, but I'm the 3rd owner of a set of Enkei RPF 2's that will definitely make a trip for some professional TLC when money allows.
 
The weather has cooperated enugh for me to finish up the job. I decided not to use these caps because the color is off a little
with-cap-jpg.14440


I also liked the way the Acura caps were counter relief, and decided they would be easier to paint with the correct paint. So I bought four of these used/ebay,

Wheel Caps Done.jpg

masked off the "H"s and painted them Blade Silver Metallic. Then coats of clear. This way they match the style that Honda used for the Acura caps.

Now the setup looks like this:

Wheel Done 2.jpg
Wheel Done 4.jpg
Now they're ready to put on. Maybe Saturday I'll have pix up with them on. Hope I like them.
 
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Pauly99to17 said:
Holy ****!!! You masked off the H's?! That must have been one tough job to get it perfect. They came out great!

Did you see how i did mine in my build thread? I also had black Acura caps and just painted over them and then got some red vinyl H's. http://9thcivic.com/forum/threads/paulys-youre-my-boy-blue.6598/page-7 (painting the caps)

http://9thcivic.com/forum/threads/paulys-youre-my-boy-blue.6598/page-11 (with vinyls on)
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I did see that. Nice work! I almost went that route myself. You have a nice match with the Duplicolor metalcast. I had to pay $36.00 for the aerosol paint I had mixed. Next time I'll save my money and do it with Metalcast!
 
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