Part 1:

Hey guys. I just picked up some Fikse FM5�s from a member on here by the name of Bill�sWS6. Side note: The guy is awesome. He worked with me, held the wheels a few WEEKS while I dealt with an emergency family surgery, and accurately described the wheels to a T. He truly is an awesome guy to work with!

Anyway, back to the story at hand. They were subjected to salt trucks and all kinds of fun stuff while they were on his daily driver. As you can see from the pictures I�ll be posting over the next few days, they will cover just about everything I�ll be doing to the wheels.

My goal is a perfect polished lip and black powdercoated centers. I�ll be smoothing out the inner part of the wheel and polishing it up a bit which will get all of the daily road crap off in preparation for the powdercoater.

First off, right out of the box, they really needed to be cleaned.

Here is a picture of what I�m working with on the face of the wheel. This is by far the worst one.



Here is a picture of the inner hoop I was talking about getting all of the road dirt, grease, tar and other misc. **** off of.



Here is the inner hoop after being attacked by motivated fingers, simple green and steel wool. I�ve taken the bolts out to clean them as well as around the bolt holes where I couldn�t get the first go around. I�ll finish tomorrow afternoon.



Here are the nasty *** bolts after a simple green shake in my shaker from my bar. And my guests wonder why their drinks always taste funny�ok, just joking.



Here is what I used so far in the fight for the clean up and stripping process�pretty simple!



I didn�t take pictures of the stripping process which happened earlier in the day because I didn�t have my camera batteries charged and didn�t want to mess with it because day light was quickly fading so I apologize for the lack of photo taking. It was fun to say the least. By fun, I mean gay. The paint stripper I use is some nasty **** if you get it on your skin.

I�ll have more tomorrow if I can find time to work on them. Hopefully this will be helpful to those who are thinking about refinishing a set of wheels.

 

Looks good! Nice job cleaning them up.

 

Thanks, so far this is just the tip of the iceburg. I've got a **** load of work left to do on them before I send them to be coated and cover all of my work up. It'll be worth it in the end though.

 

Looks like a lot of work. I love those rims! Why are you using stipper though? And watch out cause Simple green is corosive to aluminum....

 

Nice, that will be a very rewarding project!!!

FM5s

 

Keep us up to date with more progress pictures...can't wait to see what the resurected version of these will look like!

 

I'm actually powdercoating them like I said earlier in the thread. These came with the Technipolished centers which are the CNC marks on the face of the wheel with a protective clearcoat over that. In order to powdercoat them, it's all got to come off for the perfect finsih that will last a long time.

I should have some more pictures today of the cleaning around the bolt holes, a bit of sanding, taking the wheel weights off, possibly sanding the face of the centers and most llikely the cleaning and re-install of the bolts. It all depends how I'm feeling after work today. Who knows, there might be a picture of the process on a 12 pack.

 

 

Nice work. I've been tempted to do that myself with mine, to clean out those little rusty spots around the bolts. I talked to Fikse and they said there isn't much hope of re-vitalizing the black annodized centers, short of re-annodizing them. But, I sure would like to try....


-Mike

 

Looks like a lot of work, should be awesome once you're done.

If it were me, I'd just be like, ah screw it, take them to the chrome plater, let them use their nasty chemicals to strip them and chrome plate the whole damn thing.

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. I don't want to chrome plate them simply because I feel that when you put chrome rims on a car, it changes its whole demeaner. I just think polished and black looks meaner for some reason. I had about $1800 worth of chrome under my hood for show but then decided it wasn't "me" and sold it all. Now everything is powdercoated or polished and I think it's a much cleaner look.

Here is the engine bay to show you what I mean...

 

Hey guys,

Time for an update. I got off work early today and kicked back with a few beers and some more simple green and steel wool.

Old wheel weights hit the road...



Remember the **** around the bolts on the wheels? Upgrade!



Remember all of those shitty looking bolts? Upgrade!



That's all right now. I'm itching to do some polishing on the lips so I think they may fall to the victim to my buffing wheel a little later tonight. Time to kick back a few more and go cut the grass.

 

Looks great man, keep up the good work (and updates)!

 

Wow, great work man!

 

Great work man, those are looking verrry good..

 

they looks great man nice work so far.

 

Things are looking incredible man. It's a great feeling to be able to restore a product back to its original condition, or better.

 

Very nice cant wait to see the finished product. On a side note how do you like that adjustable STB?

 

There really isn't an advantage with an adjustable. I ordered all of my suspension at the same time. I clicked all the drop down boxes for adjustable and I guess it was by accident. No real improvement over a regular one really.

 

Dammmm, It didn't take you long to get these looking alot better. I knew they had potential if time was put into them. They just sat in my garage for so long.

I am glad you are the one that ended up with them. I can't wait to follow this thread.

They will look awesome in black on your car. Love the engine bay!

Take Care,

Bill