Deep dish alloy refurb (by hand)

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loud
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Location: 25 miles south of Aberdeen Drives: 9N3 Polo GTi

Deep dish alloy refurb (by hand)

Post by loud »

well here is proof that you don't need expensive tools to refurb alloys with polished dishes, if you have the determination and the courage to strip and sand them (took me a while to build it up).

I've never done anything like this before but was sick of the state of my RH AD Cups, which used to be beautiful (in my eyes anyway).

My sister totally wrecked one of them moving my car :mad: and the other one I unfortunately smacked off a curb in the snow. They didn't look to bad initially but after a winter of poor weather and loads of salt on the roads, they were looking very sorry for themselves.

The time had come to bite the bullet and have a bash at sorting them out. Here is what the looked like prior:

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Firstly, I nitromors'd the lacquor (sp?) off them, which was probably the scariest step for a newb like me.

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I then scraped it all off thoroughly, washed the rim down and started sanding away with P240 wet and dry.

Once the worst was off I sanded again with P800 wet and dry

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I then sanded with P1200 wet and dry, polished with meguiars NXT all metal polysh (hate how they spell it with a Y) and put autoglym super resin polish on top of that.

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and here is the other wheel which was really bad as well, if not worse (forgot to take before pics unfortunately)

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i've only done the outer lip at the moment as it was the bit that needed the most work. going to have a bash at the rest of the dish afterwards but need to make sure I don't cut in to the main wheel paintwork with the nitromors (any tips on doing that?)

Took roughly 4 hours per wheel of intense sanding to get them like that (have the stained/cut/bleeding fingers to prove it!) very pleased with the overall finish though.

Will seal them with jeffs prime/acrylic once it arrives (hopefully tomorrow)
shougal
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Post by shougal »

they look a hell of a lot better can you get new centre caps for em?
im about to start my gti bbs's. you gona paint them calipers?
DannyMk5
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Post by DannyMk5 »

looks good mate, nice job. Now the centre caps lol
loud
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Post by loud »

i'm not sure where you'd get RH one's, and don't really want to pay for some new ones to have them f**k up again in less than a year!

will paint my calipers eventually, busy tarting up little bits that have annoyed me for a while. Will only paint them black though, not a fan of coloured calipers unless you have some really nice/expensive ones to show off
Dee-vub
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Post by Dee-vub »

Fair job you've done there my man! :D
JKM_GTI
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Post by JKM_GTI »

Looks good!

Check out this link, might want to double check they'll fit :wink:

http://www.edition38.com/forums/index.p ... pic=102799
way_z
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Post by way_z »

u done that with your tyres still on, u hero! i'm about to do the same but don't have the balls to keep em on cuz of nitromors, sanding etc...
Biddle
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Post by Biddle »

Looks like the jobs a good 'un!! :D
loud
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Post by loud »

yea had to be careful around the edges not to sand my tyres, I have a lot of room for error though as the tyres are stretched :D
prawny
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Post by prawny »

loud wrote:yea had to be careful around the edges not to sand my tyres, I have a lot of room for error though as the tyres are stretched :D
looks awesome there mate, can i ask what widths and tyre sizes you've got for that look.
cheers
matt
loud
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Post by loud »

cheers

the rear wheels that you're seeing there are 8j and the tyres are 195/45/15
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