Has anyone else used Olympic Powdercoating? Will they do wheel repair as well?

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

Folks, can someone put together a concise list of the precise components used to refinish your "bundt" wheels, as this is a task that I have planned to tackle over the Christmas holidays.
I plan to use a Harbor Freight hand sandblaster using some sort of media that I purchased there - it is not sand, but some sort of little white balls.
What are the specifics regarding Duplicor paint colors, specific primer, specific clear coat, etc.?

Thanks so much in advance!

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1983 300D (Hans)

Post #7 (of this thread) has the Duplicolor information and post #28 has an even better paint, and clear coat, source.

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Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

So Mr. Safety, after 2 years how is the finish holding up? Any issues or things to do differently next time?

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1982 280SL - Petrol Green
1994 E420 - Brilliant Silver
1995 E320 wagon - Smoke Silver

anyone used fast forward wheels chroming in cali?

After such a long time, it's ironic you write now and ask... ironic because I was just commenting to my INDY Mercedes friend about how well my refinished wheels have held up. I refinished 3 sets of 4 tires and all 3 cars have held up well. I personally did not have a MBZ with the wheels but my Son's, my Father-N-Laws, and my INDY friends wheels are all performing well... and my thinking is that I could/would readily refinish a set of these same wheels again! Remember now that I:
[1] wet sand-blasted using my 1800 psi high pressure washer using an accessory attachment and construction grade sandblasting sand that cost$11/100lbs,
[2] primed... 2 coats,
[3] paintd... 2 coats, and
[4] sealcoat... 1 coat

Regards,

Thanks for the very informative thread. I have two sets of wheels that I want to refinish. One question though.

The original wheels are just clear-coated aluminum alloys, correct? So...why couldn't we just take the old clear coat off, polish up the aluminum and re-apply clear. Why do they have to be painted with base?

Thanks.

Togorashi,
Well this is the first time anyone has mentioned this possibility... but based upon my experience with my project that entailed Wet-Sandblasting the 14 or 15 different wheels, I would swear that all of these were previously painted and I would bet ya the paint was OEM !
NO, I'm going to stick my rear-end out there and say these alluminum/(alloy?) wheels were OEM painted the very common/popular grey/silver color that a number of other high-end European cars' metal/allow wheels are "painted". To the best of my knowledge, when most metal/alloy wheels are finished with only clearcoat, this is done over a highly polished wheel... right?
Well this style MBZ wheels were definitely NOT highly polished and they "nicked-up" just like they were painted!
I'd love to see what you might get trying what you say... but IF I were in your shoes, I would try it first on a single wheel [ the one in the worst condition of your litter ] just to see how it comes out... and maybe IF you are lucky enough to have 5 "Bundt" wheels and if the experiment does not work out, well it could be it could be used as the wheel for the spare!
Regards,

So, what you're inferring is that Bundts might be just clearcoated aluminum, but the others are probably all painted? Am I reading you right? Because I have one set of Bundts and one set of 8-spokes.

In the end it doesn't really matter as far as what my prep will be. I'll sand them down and see what I've got.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

Has anyone ever tried to strip chrome off an alloy MB wheel and then paint the wheel? I have heard that, theoretically at least, the chrome application is acidic and damages the surface of the wheel. However, my source for that information, wheel collision, did not say they had actually seen it.

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I never go far without a little Big Star

1994 E500 199/Gray 82k
84 300D (Salty) Orient Red/Palomino 141k
88 300CE (Ersatzhammer) 904/Java 163k -- Turbo Technics twin turbo kit, AMG Gen I body kit, Sportline steering box and steering wheel, Sportline/Eibach /Bilstein Sport/500E suspension, Quaife LSD in 210 mm diff case, Silver Arrow brakes.
88 300CE Brabus 3.6 199 on Black 44k

Not sure if it would be from acidity or dissimilar metal corrosion. Maybe the same thing with different names? If they were done properly (I would suspect they were, if it were truly MB), IIRC it's a three step process, with copper, nickel, and chrome. Not sure how copper reacts with aluminum.

How about smoothing out curb rash or dealing with bent wheels? Has anybody attempted to deal with those things? I would think that bent rims might require specialized equipment.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

Fixing curb rash is fairly easy. Here are links (in addition to all the great information in this thread).

http://autopia.org/forum/general-garage-discussion/94595-weekend-wheel-repair-w-pics.html

http://www.audiworld.com/tech/ext43.shtml

Fixing bent rims is a job for the pros.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

That's pretty much what I thought. Curb rash is just deep scratches and scratches can usually be polished out with successively finer abrassives.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

Polishing bundts to a mirror (or near it) is VERY difficult and you need a lot of supplies and tools. The vast majority of these wheels were forged, and were painted with very thick paint and then clearcoated. This hid a lot of grinding marks, flaws, et cetera - there was no reason to spend the extra labor to remove them. Many used wheels have curb rash, which, obviously, you can't hide with paint if you intend to polish. 6.5" wide (the only size worth having, IMO, excepting the 15" bundts which are made from unobtanium) wheels are not as common as you might think.

Obviously when you want to remove the paint and polish them, ALL flaws have to be removed. I did 5 wheels, and it almost killed me - but then, I did them inside, outside, and even the 80 windows. I've put Boeshield on them and we will see if they require constant polishing. Well, it's gotta be cheaper than constant chroming, and at least I can do this at home.

Here's what they look like - nice, but I wish they were 2" more in diameter...

Attached Thumbnails

 

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86 560SL
With homebrew first gear start!
85 380SL
Daily Driver Project

http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl/mercedes.htm