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BBS Style 5 RIm refinishing


heinemann

4,936 views

Here is a small update on the Style 5 rims that I am using on the car.  I found these at a local salvage yard for $300. They had the usual curb rash and the clear coat was peeling. Cosmetically, the barrels were pretty bad. I used various stages of grit to remove the curb rash and polish the barrels to a mirror finish. I finished the polish with a polishing compound and light cutting jeweler's rouge on a shaggy buffing wheel. This project was beyond tedious, and only recommended for true skin flints and insomniacs.

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I took the rims apart and set out to polish the barrels.

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The center sections were in good shape so I left those alone.

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I used aircraft stripper to remove the clear coat. It took a while and several coats but it eventually all came off.

I used a plastic spakle / putty knife top gentle remove the tough stick on coating.

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I close up of the aircraft stripper doing it's thing. IMG_2859.JPG

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I polished the rims buy hand using a successive levels of grit paper - going from coarse to fine (250 for curb rash though 2000 for mirror polish.

This was tedious top say the least. I finished the rims off with a buffing wheel on a drill and some jewler's rouge.

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BBS multi piece rims use special knurled bolts to hold them together and they are very expensive to replace. I called around to have them chromed, but it was going to be absurdly expensive so I decide to zinc plate them and polish.

 

After buying a zinc ingot of ebay, I made a plating solution using acetic acid and sugar. The ingot has to soak at least 24 hrs to pull zinc into solution for plating.

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I used some rechargeable AA batteries for the voltage. Zinc plating requires a very low voltage to be passed through solution. I monitored the voltage drop with a meter to know when I need to replace the batteries.  Below is a shot of the bolts coming out of solution. They ended up dull in color and had zinc crystals attached to the metal.

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I placed each bolt into a drill, spun them and polished them with super fine steel wool and 2000 grit wet #m autobody sand paper. The picture is lousy, but the finished results are very nice.

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Cleared the bolts before reassembly.

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Then I reassembled the rims, attaching the centers to the barrels and torquing the bolts to spec. I could be more pleased with the results.

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