It's been a long trip but, I completed my latest project:
Restoring a set of Ro style wheels. When I was in the process of restoring my MGB a few years back, my cousin gave me a set (4) Ro style wheels. I sand blasted them and had the normally black painted inset area, painted red to match the color of our MGB.
I didn't mask them all that well, and was kind of bummed at how they came out. So when I put the newly painted rims (wrapped in Pirelli P400's) on the car, I ended up with a set of ro styles left over. They have sat in my Dad's basement in the "I'll get to this someday" pile. Well someday finally happened back at the end of October of 2008.
The basic Idea was to re condition these wheels, in the traditional Black/Silver MG style, have them done with new center caps, Wheel trim, Lug nuts, Valve Stem caps, and a set of nice tires.
I've seen kits for rostyle painting, from pre cut tape templates to clear plastic masks. I've heard the plastic masks don't work all that well. If you can find the precut tape templates, they help out a bit, Saving time, but painters tape will do the trick nicely, It'll just take a bit longer.
I picked up a sandblasting gun from Sears, and a 100 lb bag of black beauty sand. Ok a few problems:
1. Do NOT store sandblasting media in a damp place of any kind. Even though we had it under a tarp, and still it got wet from some rain that we had, and I ended up with a bag of black mud. This basically turned the first day into a loss. The place we get our media from is only open Monday-Friday 9:00Am-5:00Pm. Kind of hard for folks that want to do this work on the weekends. It makes you have to plan ahead. I had taken a personal day at work one day, and picking up a bag of this sand was on my to do list. The remaining bags My Dad bought. Thankfully his work enables him to be on the road, and picking up sand wasn't as big a deal for him as it would be for me.
2. When using a sandblasting gun. Use a hose clamp on the gun end to connect the line. I found out after a few abortive attempts that I wasn’t getting enough vacuum to suck the sand up, but when I got the gun real close to the item to be sandblasted, the hose would blow off. Hmm, So I found an old hose clamp on the floor of the garage, put it on there and it held it on enough to finally work. It took about 2 hours to get everything finally going and doing the actual work. It took about an hour to do a wheel, basically because after 20 minutes or so of sandblasting, I was covered in the black sand that gets into EVERY orifice, even if covered. I didn't have a sandblasting booth, so I was doing this outside. You have to take a small break every now and then and wipe the grit out of every place. even with goggles I had grit in my eyes. The first Saturday, We got 4 of the rims 90% done, and then ran out of black beauty. Bummer. If we had a sandblasting booth/box, it wouldn't be that bad we would have been able to recycle some of the media.
So we started with these:
So the following Saturday we tackled them again. Amazingly enough with the damp and cold fall weather the unfinished metal stayed pretty clean in between weekends. I blasted the remaining one, and I gave the remaining 4 some extra attention and blasted the finished ones again.
1 of the wheels had some gunk built up on the backside. I tried the sandblaster, but the residue was so soft and thick that the sand just got embedded in it, or just bounced off. I used the knife blade on my leatherman and was able to cut it out, it was so thick, it was like peeling an orange! Dad ended up getting a wire wheel brush, and he attached it to his drill, and was able to get the caked on goo all out.
after finishing the front of the wheels, I made sure to do the edge of the rims (inner and outer) to make sure I'll get proper seating when the tires get installed. I also blasted the inside areas that have cut outs, such as the vent holes, and the lug nut holes. it seems like if any rust would get through, it would be through those areas.
I gave them a quick blast of just clean air, and then placed them on the floor of the garage, and then started to prime them. I don't recall using a primer on the last set. It was a kit I got from some MG mail order place that isn't in business anymore, so I can't reference it. I remember using a silver/grey coat, and then running out, and using a can of rustoleum to put a coat over that, hence why the silver on my red set of rims tend to "sparkle" a bit more.
I figured I'd rather use a more "common" set of paints for this project. I've heard good things about duplicolor, so I figure I'd give them a shot. I used their Primer (DAP1690) which is self etching. 1 thing that's was kind of a bummer. It's green, I felt like I was painting Jeep parts in WWII. The primer was good, it went on real easy and dried very quickly.
The following week I was out of commission due to working my real job, so the next Saturday I headed back to the shop, armed with 2 cans of Duplicolor's flat black. I set the wheels up and put down several coats. it dries pretty quickly which is nice, and over the next couple of hours I emptied out the 2 cans completely.The flat black looks dull by itself, I'm not use to seeing the rims in that state, but it's a step better than the primer's green hue. I also hit the backside with a good coat of paint as well, just to keep anything from rusting away. It wasn't alot of work, and it was nice to be home by 2:00, and not covered in grease or black sand.
I probably could have taped up the wheels that weekend, and painted silver on them, but I figured I'd wait and let this color cure before I put on another one, to make sure there's no cracking.
The next weekend I taped up the insets of the wheels, and then began to spray the silver paint. Taping sucks, it's very detailed kind of work, and can be tough to do, the important thing is take your time. I used 2 different sizes of painters tape, 1 roll was about 1/2" wide, and another was 2" wide. I basically followed the edges with the thin tape, then used the wide tape to fill in the big gaps.
Due to the fact the day I taped up the wheels was a wet & rainy day, a few taped areas came undone a bit during the application of the silver coats of paint, I lifted up the tape (after several light coats of silver) to realize that some of the black sections had some silver overspray. Bummer. I also noticed some bad tape lines here and there, Mild Bummers. So I taped up the offending areas and re applied another coat of black. Thankfully I had a set of precut templates left over from the last set of wheels. After applying the black touch up coat, I taped them up again, and re applied a coat of silver to finish off the bad tape lines. I have to say taking this extra re-taping & painting touch up step, made a HUGE difference. an extra step, but well worth it!
After the color, and the touchups I sprayed clearcoat on all the wheels for protection & Gloss
I have to say I was pretty impressed with the results. Not bad for a job done in a garage with some pretty basic tools and some spray cans. All in all, it was an interesting process. I do have a few suggestions though, and they could be applied to any project.
1. Prep everything ahead of time, Tools, Supplies, etc. Make sure you have at least 2x the amount of any supplies you think you'll need. You're better off having left over's, than run out.
2. Keep your work area as clean as possible.
3. Take your time. Rome wasn't built in a day! Plan on spending 2x the time you think it would take to do. Stuff comes up, there are extra runs to the store (see note #1), tools needed, etc.
4. Be prepared to re do or fix anything that you may mess up, or doesn't turn out the way you expected.
One thing I probably would have done differently, would be to get a thin pin striping type tape, and use that for my initial masking, it would be easier to apply and use as a base to go over with the larger tape.
Supplies:
Sandblasting Gun - Sears $29.95
Black Beauty Sand - $17.00 A bag (2 used, 1-useless)
Primer - $14.95 (2 cans)
Black Paint - $14.95 (2 cans)
Silver Paint- $14.95 (2 cans)
Clear coat paint - $14.95 (2 cans)
Razor Blades
Painters tape
So all in all to do 5 wheels cost about $150 total. I've seen reconditioned Rostyle wheels go for over $100 a wheel, so it's still pretty cost effective to do this.
And to complete the package, I'm planning on the following:
From Moss Motors:
MG wheel insets
chrome trim rings
Chrome MG Lugnuts
MG valve stem caps
From Tirerack.com:
Pirelli p4000 tires
Ok here's the time rundown:
Saturday #1 wet sand, lack of tools, running around, no luck. Waste of a weekend.
Saturday #2 slow start, but completed 90% of Sandblasting project. Ran out of Black beauty. I also Scored a set of SU HIF carbs (I'll report on that later)
Saturday #3 completed sandblasting, primed wheels. Sandblasted and carb manifold and air cleaners. Primed the air cleaners
Saturday #4 no dice-had to work
Saturday #5 Applied flat black paint
Saturday #6 taped up wheels-applied silver coat and over the following week applied several other coats of silver
Saturday #7 Touch up session-well worth it!
Saturday #8 clear coating, Saturday, Sunday & Monday.
I wanted to make this a weekend project, not something that would keep me busy every night after work. Now none of these days were very long, I think the longest day was 6 hours or so, with the shortest being 2. Since I had to travel about 20 minutes to the garage where I'm working on this, it took a bit longer. If I was doing this at home I'd probably would have been done in half the time.
I have access to a couple of other sets of wheels, and I think I'll be doing those as well, even if just to have a set to sell at a later date. My dad & I just completed rough semi portable sandblasting booth. I'll keep you all posted to see how it all works out.
Oh and don't worry I have plans for those red rostyle wheels!
anyway that's bout it, I promise, now with the driving season upon us, I'll have more posts (and they'll be alot more frequent)
Latah
CD
