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Home refurbishing my 17" OEM wheels


rider
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I purchased a set of 17" OEM wheels probably 4 years ago and have finally got around to working on them. They came with tyres on so they were removed and disposed of at the local recycling centre. I plan to repair any curb dings with metal epoxy and then paint and lacquer the wheels and centre caps. 

I have home restored alloy wheels before so I'll be using the same procedure for these wheels. First up sanding with air tools and sheets. I'll apply primer plasters to metal bared from the sanding process and also mark up the rim of the wheel where repairs are required. The rim repairs can go from a simple, just more sanding to the more major curvature restoration with crushed or grazed lip infill and contouring. 

Identifying the period proper paint isn't easy as an extensive net trawl testifies. There is the US Supra forum that has a quote that Dupli Color mystic silver or something similar as a good match but we don't tend to have Dupli Color paints over here in the UK. Off to a professional auto paint shop I went, to see what the options were as I don't have any original colour wheels to just scan and copy. The paint shop (they just sell paints rather than apply paints) said they have a database of all the colours applied to cars that is accessed by entering the cars VIN colour; 040 in my instance. From this they arrived at a paint code of BSB 104 Silver - Toyota Standard. I'll find out once its sprayed how it looks.

I mark up each wheel after the sanding stage is all but complete with areas requiring a primer plaster before painting or on the rim, the areas needing a bit of ding attention.

I'll add in progress pictures as the stages progress that will hopefully be of some use for anyone else considering undertaking their own wheel refurb. I could get the wheels done professionally for probably £150 more than my materials costs but it a hobby so I'm sure that I'll get lots of fun doing it and hopefully enjoy the end result knowing that I did those wheels. I'll be using spray cans for the primer and 2k lacquer with the silver being laid down from a 1.2mm spray gun. 

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Taking my time on this seeing its been so cold out. First wheel primed ready for a final wet sand before painting, which I will do a day or two before applying the silver paint.

The lip had five areas with scrapes with one being scraped and splayed (flattened) by an impact. With the splayed metal the choices are to grind back to the correct curvature or to tap it back into rough shape and fill. I used my body work hammers to tap the lip contour back into shape and then filled the scarring with metal epoxy filler. Before the filler had a chance to set I cut off the excess from, the edges of the lip using a scalpel; leaving it proud on top. Once the filler had set it was flat sanded using a block and dry and wet paper.

Final stage was three dustings of primer. One wheel prepped, three to go.

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The worst of the five rim scars had the lip splayed as well as scored.

 

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The splayed lip was hammered back into shape to retain the metal, rather than grinding the contour back onto the lip.

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Metal epoxy filler applied and the sides trimmed using a scalpel blade.

 

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After wet and dry sanding

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After 3 coats of primer, just needs a fine grit wet sand before painting.

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The next update will be the actual silver spraying of the wheels using the fine 1.2mm gravity spray gun. The primer and paint are both 1K paints. 1K paints remain live unlike 2K paints, so they can always be solvent reactivated. You do need to take care spraying 1K paint on top of 1K primer to ensure the paint doesn't dissolve and mix with the primer. It is important to apply a very fine first coat, effectively a tack coating. This will seal the primer from the additional coats of paint with the second being a thicker layer and the final third coat thicker again. 

I use high end pressure, a lot of guns will say to use around 35psi but I prefer to go for higher 50psi gun pressure. For the small guns you can maintain that pressure from a small 25l air tank and around 8cfm displacement compressor, I have a 100l with a much higher cfm than the minimum required. Can spraying is easy but I actually prefer doing gun spraying on top coat layers. Even though with the wheels I will be using spray cans for the lacquer. I'd prefer to gun pray the lacquer if it was bodywork.

This is the absolute best video I came across way back when I started gun spraying paints. The no nonsense attitude of the guy just appealed to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHmMaPnH5Ow&ab_channel=D.I.Y.AUTOSCHOOL

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  • 3 months later...

Its been a few months with the wheels all primed sat under towels waiting for the weather to warm up. You shouldn't paint in an ambient under 15C or onto a cold surface so I've been waiting for the weather to warm up, which is now happening with grass cutting under way again. So, I'm hoping to lay down the base coat onto the wheels in the next couple of week and we will then get to see what the BSB 104 Silver - Toyota Standard paint looks like. Can't wait, I need to crack on if I'm going to get these wheels onto the car come the Summer. I've purchased a set of new wheel nuts (they are an amazing £12 a nut from Toyota) to go with the newly painted wheels as I'm not certain if the wheel nuts for the current fitment set of BBS wheels are suited to the OEM wheels.

I do love a bit of spray painting, its so rewarding. Until you get the runs, the overspray, a bit of peel effect and the likes. Its all a matter of keeping the gun flow and distance optimal to get the best effects which is always a little hit and miss for occasional sprayers.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The good bit of painting is when it goes well it goes really well and when it doesn't, then it doesn't. 

I collected all the wheels together today and gave them a nice wet sand. When primed they look great but you know once the paint goes on what isn't perfect is going to get amplified. And so it turned out.

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This is after each wheel has had its sanding, ready for the first tack layer base coat spray. The silver looks very grey in its mixing bottle which is promising as I always recall the Toyota silver being a darker silver than most. I mixed up a little over 200ml of paint, 50% with thinner. I found the gun pressure at 45psi a bit high for the mixture so this blend settled into a nice flow pattern at around 37psi. I've sprayed a lot of cellulose and enamel which must be thicker as they both work well with a higher gun pressure. 

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With the first tack coat its amazing how a little paint goes a long way. Probably no more than 60ml to coat the 4 wheel faces and rims. 

 

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Then after the 3rd coat. in all less than 200ml paint was required (actually 100ml paint mixed with 100ml thinner). These wheels are still wet so have more of a shine to them than they will when dry. The two right side wheels have a lot of rough areas, due to these wheels being painted a few times there are old runs and and blemishes showing through that didn't reveal themselves at the primer stage. So, I'm going to have to have a think whether I sand and start again with those two wheels or not. Though they looked absolutely perfect when I took my glasses off. Once the wheels are done then its onto the centre discs and after that they will all get the 2K lacquer treatment. 

The silver colour does look to be the correct period grey silver colour so for anyone looking for what silver to go for this could well be the colour code to your OE look; BSB 104 Silver - Toyota Standard.

 

 

 

 

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Its been a nicely warm early spring day today so that afforded quick drying time allowing me time to get the centre caps painted and the first coat of lacquer applied.

 

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I'm more than happy with the colour, a very lush distinctly grey silver. It'll be a second coat of lacquer tomorrow and then I'll let the wheels sit for a couple of months before having tyres fitted to give plenty of time for the clear coat to fully cure. I'll either go with Continental or Bridgestone tyres and I guess the next picture should be these wheels sporting new rubber on my car sometime later this year.

The OE alloys are such a key part to the stock look that many owners are now hoping to return to, its a pity that most sets got themselves scrapped leaving them a bit of a rare item these days.

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  • 3 months later...

When I bought my wheels, for £350 I viewed them as an investment. Being a highly visible part of the traditional OE look I was certain they would add comfortably £2k to the car price for anyone seeking that elusive stock look. I have heard of sets recently going for well ahead of £1k and nudging up to £2k. There is a current ad up for a set in need of a bit of TLC for £1,995. The prices have  got to the point where it is no longer an investment to buy a set of 17" OEM wheels. They are now a real cost addon.

But, for anyone hankering for an OEM set the eBay item number is 334485112784.

I haven't added tyres to my set yet as the ones on the car have too much tread left to waste. Maybe next year?

Edited by rider (see edit history)
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A nice little read this. Did you get any further with the lacquer coating? The colour is nice - quite rich. 

Definitely a good investment at £350. I bought some OEM 17s in 2015/2016 for £300/£350 (would have to check) but they are 202 black. Given the way prices have went I should probably repaint them like yours and punt them on 😁

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I did the second coat of lacquer the next day and they have been sitting under towels since awaiting their rubber boots. With me only doing 250 miles a year it's going to take a while to wear down the tyres presently on the car so I'll just go ahead and do it one day when the urge takes me to do it. 

The grey silver does look very lush and period correct so if you want the original Toyota look at least we now have the paint code available for anyone wishing to do so.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Seems OEM 17" wheels are now pretty firmly priced at £2,000, Euro2,000 or US$2,000 optional extra from all the recent ads around UK, USA and Europe. They are definitely not cheap, I am going to have to reinstate locking wheel nuts when I finally get around to putting this set onto my car.

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  • 2 months later...

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