Just had the bundt-cake wheels on my 82 300D refinished. The orginial finish on these wheels was one of the only esthetic flaws on these cars. I researched options and pricing for a few months on this one and found powder coating to be the best idea (both cost and enviromentally).

I highly recommend www.olympicpowdercoating.com who came in at $46.80 per wheel, including stripping plus basecoat, MB silver, & clear; a far cry from some body shops that wanted $175+ per wheel to shoot them with standard coatings.

Now all you need to do is figure out how to drive your car without wheels for a couple weeks. . . I bought a set of spare wheels from a junker in Arkansas that can be cleaned up after this is all over. I just had to see nice wheels on a car without any other flaws.

Yeah, I gotta do something my sd's wheels, those are the biggest sore spot on the whole car.

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"spreading a trail of obnoxious where ever we go"
1981 300sd w/ 341,500 miles

http://www.wecrash.com/pics/ddda_banner.gif

Yup, my wheels as well. I have a lead on some guy out here that will dismount the tires, media blast, powdercoat, clearcoat?, and remount the tires all of an outrageous price of $12 per wheel. Just need to figure out how to drive for 2 days with out wheels.

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Adam Lumsden
(83) 300D
Vice-President of the MBCA International Stars Section

For $50 a wheel it might make sense. But I have heard of people spending $100 a wheel to refinish them. That doesn't make sense when you can buy brand new ones for $130.

Powdercoating is the way to go though.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Please, please,,,, SHARE NAMES!!!!!

That's even in my price range!

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-Matt

EPA Section 609 Certified MVAC Technician
-----------------
Oil Burner Kartel Member #10

Ahh the smell of Diesel Fuel, it's like coffee in the morning!

My Car:

1982 300SD Turbo Diesel (231,500 miles!) RIP

1984 300SD Turbo Diesel Custom (235,500 mi on driveline.) - On Road!!

www.icsrepair.com

Can you post some pictures of the powdercoated wheels- How long did they take??

Rather than start another thread, I'll post here what I did at home for a few dollars. Two of the Bundt cake-pan wheels on my W123 were OK, two were pretty bad. I didn't want to pay a lot of money and have them gone and the car undriveable for who knows how long. I even thought of buying or borrowing a couple of wheels to use while mine were gone.

Finally, I decided to try painting them myself. What the heck -- I couldn't make the situation worse, right? First, I took the DuPont color number G8081 (from someone on this forum) to Hawley's Paint here in Santa Rosa. They mixed up a pint of DuPont "Centari" acrylic enamel and put some of it in a spray can for me. I also bought a spray can of enamel clearcoat.

At home, I removed the wheels and scrubbed them -- 409 cleaner, steel wool, light sandpaper, etc., and a nasty solvent called "water" (dissolves almost anything). After the wheels dried, I started masking. First, a layer of masking tape, which did not stick well to the rubber tire. Good thing I don't use Armour-All, the tape would not have stuck at all! Then I wrapped the tire and wheel in plastic and cut an opening, taping the plastic to the first layer of tape. Photo #1 shows the result.

Photo #2 shows a closeup of how bad the wheels were and also the plastic tube that I stuck over the valve stem. Once the masking was done, I put an old cardboard box (conveniently the right size, 24"x24") over the tire and wheel to act as a mini-spray booth (I was painting in the driveway). Then I sprayed on the paint (see photo #3).

The paint was allowed to dry overnight and I then applied the clearcoat. It crinkled the color in a couple of places; I probably should have waited another day (patience is not my thing). While the clearcoat was drying, I cleaned the (cadmium plated) lug bolts with 0000 steel wool and Mothers Aluminum and Mag Polish and clearcoated them.

The result, shown in photo #4, cost about $45 for two wheels and there was enough to do all four if I had needed to. The color match is somewhere between "very close" and "identical." Tonight the wheels go back on the car and tomorrow I drive it.

Jeremy

Attached Thumbnails

       

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

have you heard of a spare tire under the trunk? if you can be patient enough, you can do one wheel at a time, therefore, you can use your spare tire to drive your car for a day or two, then have the next wheel painted and so on...

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'85 300D Turbo - CA Version

But my spare has never touched the ground. I'm working on digging up the name of the guy. Hopefully he does good work but I don't know how he does it for that price.

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Adam Lumsden
(83) 300D
Vice-President of the MBCA International Stars Section

I spent about $100 each, I didn't want new painted wheels, I wanted powdwercoat, so I just went to the best place I could find and had them done. BTW, I just left the car on jackstands for a week.

Perfect timing! It's about time then. What are you planning to do with it, bubble wrap it, put it in a jar and preserve it?

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'85 300D Turbo - CA Version

I used a can of regular silver wheel paint on an SD that I sold, and it looked really nice, but for how long I don't know. Powdercoating seems like the ideal solution if you are planning on keeping the car.

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87 300D - Running on Veggie oil; 260,000 plus miles; Original #14 head

Hi,
instead of polishing (by hand) I had contact to the newest chrome coating.
There are some companies advertising a new process for mirror like chrome coat. But only for showcars without road contact. The available clearcoat is yet too weak to prevent from damages which in combination with water cause a black increasing spot. (At least here in Europe).
Everybody is waiting but they asked me to wait some more months.
Any experiences with this in the US?

Tom (dreaming of chrome wheels for my SD)

I previously purchased a wheel painting kit from **************.Com and now I just received a wet sandblasting accessory for my electric consumer model "Kaercher" High Pressure washer pump. My intention is to do something like Jeremy did but timing it such that I'm ready to put on new tires soon after the wheels are finished.

Q - Do any of you know about what blast media I should use to prepare these aluminum-alloy wheel? Kaercher sells the accessory and their only instructions is a single picture on the box!

Regards,
Sam

Since were talking about wheels here,I put 15" wheels on my 85 300sd from my wifes 91 350sd.Makes the car ride better and really fills up the wheel well nicely.Johnny

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85 300sd SOLD ,85 745i,95 740i,1972 Suburban,1938 International