I have phone dials on my 86NA and I wanted to refinish them. Since the car is black I was thinking of painting them black and polishing the rim. In order to polish the rim I first need to strip them. I was planning on using aircraft remover but I do not want to remove the tires from the rims. Does anyone see a problem with this if mask off the tires good and try not to get the stripper on the tire? Any comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Mark 86 944/NA

 

take the tires off...any other way is going to end up bad.

 

Ask Sysgen.

 

I tried to do it with the tires on. To much of a PITA. Do yourself a favor and remove the tires.

 

I've always wanted to powder coat a set of phone dials.

 

aviation stripper is nasty stuff, it will eat your tires immediatly, take them off! even if you cover them in something resistant to aviation stripper, if one little drop seeps thru it will eat the bead of the tire and then its worthless. take the wheels to a tire place and have them removed and then put back on later, probably cheaper than the cost of even one tire.

 

I've done it... see avatar... lemme find my thread... until then, pics for your pleasure

 

and here's the steps I did and posted in my thread...

tires were off when I did this. aircraft stripper will KILL rubber.

Hokay... to make them look as such, I:
1) applied aircraft remover to strip any and all paint from wheel
2)washed the wheel really really well, applied "paint prep"
3) Applied about 5 coats of Duplicolor "Storm Grey" color to center area... masked off wheel lips
4) began polishing wheel lips using the below method:
a) spray lip with WD-40
b)sand with 320 grit sand paper until all casting marks were gone
c)wipe with paper towel, check how it looks, apply WD-40 again, repeat with the 320 grit
d) once all casting marks gone, wipe with paper towel, apply WD-40 again, sand with 800 grit
e)repeat A-C with the 800 grit
f)repeat A-D with 1500 grit
g)repeat A-D with 2000 grit
h)repeat A-D with steel wool (Note: no need for WD-40 with the steel wool)
i) finish with mother's aluminum polish
5) Mask off polished area
6)spray with paint prep
7)wipe of paint prep, respray storm grey to fix any "I missed with the sandpaper" marks
8)allow to dry in sun for a while
9)spray clear... a couple coats
10)remove masking tape, polish with mother's polish again
11)take pics, Post on Rennlist for your friends to ooo and aaah over...
12)pray for money to buy tires so you can mount the wheels and drool

 

I masked over the tires very carefully. It doesn't eat through the tape. I've put 3-4k miles on the car since them. If they were to fail, they would have by now.

You know how most products have a "do not get on skin" warning? Well, they mean business on this product. It'll sting for 5 minutes and make you think you are slowly causing cancer to come upon yourself. Wear gloves and glasses.

 

so this aircraft remover, where do u get it? i want to redo a pair of american racing rims, and they are painted BLACK -ug- i was gonna sandblast the **** outa them, but my one friends blaster requires special sand, and my other friend is an ******* who could do it but wont, and i was thinking of just getting some paint stripper and throw the rim in there and watch the pain melt away. and im looking to do this on the cheap. i need all the black off cuz im gonna put a white base coat, then go with a medium purple, maybe with a little pearl. my buddy just bought an Astro- for his wife he claims but she doesnt have a set of keys..., and my rims just happen to fit his/her? van. and shes about to have her first kid so i figured this would be a nice gift, and i could further test my painting skills.

 

I've done it with tires on -- just deflate them, and then you can squeeze is masking tape between the tire and the rim. No problem....

Aircraft remover can be had at your local auto parts supply store.

 

how much of the remover do u need to do 4 rims? i went to klean-strip's website(http://www.kleanstripauto.com/products/removers.html) and they have a few different strippers, which is the more potent.

 

I had some Talstrip or something like that lying around, I thought it had some sort of warning about use on aluminum or soft metals, or am I talking out of my ***? Maybe I'm confused becasue I have stripped Empi 8 spoke aluminum wheels off a VW and it didn't hurt them.

 

Porschephile-

So did you have to mask off the Porsche crest on the wheel centers for this project also. Or did you have them repainted when you finished?

_________________
-Scott
85.5 944
96 Mazda Miata

 

[QUOTE=Phi1720]Porschephile-

So did you have to mask off the Porsche crest on the wheel centers for this project also. Or did you have them repainted when you finished?



i was also curious about this