Mike F

I have a set of 3 piece BBS wheels that I am considering polishing and repainting the centers of. No, no, this is not going to be another how do I polish these wheels thread. And yes, I did try the search button. From what I gather, all I need to do is let the air out of the tires and remove the 25 or so 12 point bolts that hold the rim halves and centerpiece together (someone please correct me if I am wrong here). From there I plan on stripping polishing and painting the various parts. My question actually comes on the reassembly. I am assuming that the wheels have never been split and that the seals between the rim halves are 20 yrs old. Do I need to replace these? The seals are quite pricey at $43 per wheel, so if I don't need them it would save some $. Do any of you use silicone on the seals or are they assembled dry? Can I bolt the pieces together with the tire in place so I do not need to get them mounted, only balanced? I have found replacement bolts and seals at hrpworld. Lastly, if I ever decide to get wider tires, do I only need to buy wider wheel halves?

Geoffrey

I can only speak of the BBS Mag racing wheels, but from what you describe, they should be the same. When you remove all of the bolts, there is a seal as you mention which is a thin aluminum disk with a rubber O-ring on each side. Most likely the O-ring will stick to one or both of the wheel halves and will be no good. If it sitcks just a little bit, the seal is junk. You cannot with reliable success glue, silicone, etc. the old seal and get it to work as designed.

You will want to replace all of the bolts with a bolt kit from BBS $7 for each wheel. The bolts (at least on the race wheels) are torqued to 145in/lbs.

I have been able to do as you suggest and build the wheels "around" the tires so you don't need to mount them. It doesn't work with every tire/wheel combination and can be a pain because you cannot verify that the seal has mated properly.

If you want wider wheels or different offsets, you can just buy inner or outer wheel halves.

Cory M

If they are old race wheels you should consider doing a dye penetrant inspection on the centers to check for cracks (before repainting). Pretty easy to do yourself with a kit from someone like Grainger or most any machine should could do it for you.