Alan Mac

Double sided tape works wonders at keeping the folded over edges in place. Bloody £7 a roll at B&Q mind. Robbing gits. You could even use double sided carpet tape if you want a really strong bond. About the same price and this stuff bonds carpets straight onto concrete floors. A bit of carbon wrap isn't going to stretch its limitations.

49 year old maniac. Hi I.Q but wasted due to issues with authority figures (you know, the thick ones who talk sh*te and expect you not to mention their bad breath). Self employed as no one will give me a job due to said issues with authority. Happily making a living selling car and music related t-shirts on fleabay (lots of Toyota designs incidentally, hint, hint) and not having to deal with people in person (as I've noticed over the years that a lot of them are quite annoying). Heavily medicated after an accident at work 5 years ago which displaced four discs in my spine, knackered my left knee and ankle, and generally ruined my ability to do most of the things I enjoy. In constant pain but deal with it by laughing as much as possible and taking the p*ss at every opportunity which presents itself. The wife says I'm a likeable nightmare, which seems like a fair comment to me. Car history involves many cars I wish I still had, like the Toyota Celica mk1 GT, Mk1 Celica hatch, mk2 Celica 2600 (Arabian Gulf special, basically a Supra without the body work adornments). Datsun 240Z swb. Datsun 260Z. Datsun 280Z, Nissan 300ZX Z32 NA and Z32 Turbo swb. Lancia Integrale 8v x 2. Delta HF 4x4 (absolute rust bucket). Delta HF turbo x 2. Beta coupe x 4. Beta HPE x 7. Gamma coupe. Montecarlo x 2. Fiat 131 Sport x 4. Fiat 128 3p with Thema turbo conversion (just for a laugh, which I certainly did). Fiat 130 coupe. Fiat Samantha coupe. Fiat Strada Abarth 130TC. Really rough looking Fiat Tempra estate with Thema turbo conversion (loads more laughs). Rover SD1 3500SE V8. Rover 75 turbo estate (loved that car, the wife killed it, I remind her every day). Volvo 850 T5 estate (ex Royal Protection Unit vehicle and a real hoot to drive. Fastest brick in the UK). Loads of old Capri's and Cortina's including a couple of V8 conversions. 2 Opel Monza GSE's. An Opel Rekord GSE coupe. A few old Yanks including a '67 Plymouth Barracuda (with 7.2 litre big block), '74 Pontiac Firebird and a '71Chevy Camaro. 2 185 Celicas, one of which went to the great scrapyard in the sky while the other was lavished with loads of new parts. Owned the black one 10 years now and just finished the mechanical/body restoration which took 5 years due to extreme laziness. Virtually everything is new bar the interior. Still need to fit the windscreen that's sat in the garage after being made to order by Pilkington's and finish off the paint to a better standard as it's a bit thin in places but now distracted by actually driving the thing and embarrassing lots of d*cks with poor road manners by leaving them in a trail of Jap dust. Those jobs can wait 'til summer. Yeah, I'm pretty average when all is said and done. Think I fit in here quite nicely.

Five hours? How smooth are you making them? It's actually better to leave light sanding marks on them for the primer to adhere to, unless you are polishing the rims. Even then, I doubt it would take me 2.5 hours a wheel as I've stripped back and mirror polished rims in under an hour before. The only time it's taken me more than an hour on a wheel is when I cleaned up the Tom's alloys on my old 300ZX. They were very similar to BBS cross spokes as found on 80's/90's Beemers and took about 3 hours a wheel. The only way I can explain the difference in time between myself and you Dan is that I must sand faster than you. I strip wheels right back until there is no paint at all on them, so it must be down to the sandpaper used, technique and speed, nothing else.

Etch primer will be fine instead of sanding Sonic. Just make sure you degrease them first as finger prints and etch primer don't make good bed fellows. Computer screen wipes are great for degreasing wheels and very cheap. Just make sure you let them dry fully. I usually heat the alloys very gently with a heat gun on the lowest setting to evaporate any moisture immediately before etch priming. A hair drier on the hottest setting is probably as good but being as bald as an orange I can't possibly comment on that. Alan Here's an ebay link for 3 cans of gold paint and a can of lacquer for £22.99 including post. 370836150185 The paint is made by E-tech and is specifically for alloy wheels as it is dirt and chip resistant. The shade of gold is really nice in the metal, so to speak. Slightly more yellow than it looks on screen and very similar to the original colour on Scooby wheels (which it was formulated to match). I've used this paint in various colours on loads of alloys and it is very hard wearing. The seller is good too. HTH, Alan

B&Q are doing the 12 pack of Oakey for £6 just now. Never try to outsave a Scotsman Dan. Only needed 1 sheet but it was a bargain. If you ever buy a metallic top coat at a factors it's worth asking them to put 5% extra thinners in the mix. I've always found their metallic paint a bit thick for blending. Solid colours on the other hand are a pleasure to use and I have resprayed entire cars with them before. Cost me £200 to do a Lancia Delta and £240 all in to do a 185. After many hours of flatting back with P1500 then P2000 w 'n' d before a good going over with Farecla G3 on the mop, followed by some lovely Poor Boys hard wax, I'd defy anyone to know the car hadn't been resprayed in a pro paint shop. I keep trying to justify buying a compressor and spray gun but other than speed and it being easier to apply a thick 'wet coat', I find rattle cans will give as good a finish used with care. Plus buying acrylic paint to go through a gun is a pain unless you have a pre 1973 registration document or have an arrangement involving single malt whisky with your factor. I'll be 3M carbon wrapping and lacquering a set of 17 inch split rims in the next few weeks. I'll take some photos of the prep and application to show how it's done just as soon as I manage to get the socket to remove the rim splines.

Buy a 4 pack of Oakey Extreme P80. It's bright green sandpaper so easy to spot and B&Q sell it (though again far more expensive) if your factors doesn't. It lasts about four times as long as Halfords crap yellow stuff but costs roughly the same. 1 pack of four sheets P400 wet 'n' dry. About £5 all in. 1 can Upol etch primer. 1 can Upol high build primer (enough to put three good coats on 4 17" wheels. 2 cans of Upol white wheel paint. My local paint factors does cans of Upol for £5.65. Compare that to Halfords and you'll see my point about price. Halfords was £12 a can last time I looked. Paint comes in at £22.60 for four cans at a car paint supplier (I use the Spraystore in Motherwell). Small tube of Chemical Metal is about £2.50 at the paint factors also. Just under a fiver at Halfords. It's well worth going to the effort of locating a local paint factor as the savings soon mount up and the paint itself will be much thicker.

I should add, it's never cost me more than £40 to refurbish four wheels and that was a metallic finish with four coats of lacquer. White shouldn't cost more than £30 including sand paper, paints and a tube of Chemical Metal. Just avoid Halfords as their paint is thin and very expensive. Takes me about 90 minutes to strip two gen 7 16" alloys back to bare metal using P80 by hand. It's boring but quite satisfying.

Don't use Nitromors on alloy wheels. It gets under the surface of the alloy and comes back up to stain your paint finish. May take a week, may take a year but it always comes back. I always strip back wheels with P80 grade dry paper. Then etch prime (UPOL stuff is best but use a paint factors, not Halfords, it's half the price). UPOL filler primer next, 2 coats then wet 'n' dry with P400 wet. Use lots of water and dry off regularly so you can see how flat the paint is. Top coat in colour of your choice (3 to 4 coats). When painting wheels white, again I use UPOL wheel paint from the factors as it doesn't require a lacquer finish and dries hard as nails. If you have runs or a lot of orange peel, P1500 wet 'n' dry used wet with a bit of car wash solution in the water, then polish. Did my four wheels over two nights, including small rim repairs with Chemical Metal. About 8 hours total. Tyres only have to come off if the rims are really chewed and require TIG welding.