Will Feather

Well tonight I bought a set of Fuchs and they are great with no dings or curb rash, I pretty much stole them as well. But I was wondering what you guys would do to take the paint of them. They have the spokes polished with black on the inner, and that is chipping in spots. I was just going to strip them all down, what would you guys suggest?

drift a 944

I am doing the exact same thing right now. Literally right now.

You will have to go heavy on the paint stripper, the original paint on these fuchs seems to be really ON there.

I'll post a few pics of my progress in a few minutes.

drift a 944

alright, here we go.

here's how the wheels looked when I picked them up:




This is after a few coats of the paint stripper, still not totally done yet though:



I should have taken a picture of when they were totally stripped and then sanded. They were basically entirely silver metal color.

Here's the primer coat, I decided to take the cost effecient route and use spray paint . I've done this in the past and had good results, as long as everything is prepared correctly.


Decided to go with a slightly more abnormal finish on mine than the typical.





Again, all of this is using spray paint



Final product:



2 down, 2 to go.

Hope that helped out a bit or at least provided some entertainment.

The paint stripper ends up being a big mess, but it works. If you have access to a bead-blaster I would go for that as a first option.

Gator_86_951

Those look really good. My dad passively asked for his 930 fuchs back that I use for my track wheels. I responded "I need to use up the R-compounds on them first." Then I was like "I still have those old victoracers too that are for them..." I shall figure out a way to make him forget. Jedi mind trick?

harrisonrick

A wise man that you are.

Luis de Prat

That's because they're not painted, but anodized.

To reproduce the original fuchs look, try to go for a matt finish and have it baked if possible.

PorscheDude1

Use oven cleaner to remove anodize.

Will Feather

Drift a 944 those came out great, I was thinking about using spray paint too but i was afraid it would look like hell. You said you sanded them too, did you just use a really fine grit? Also I knew they were anodized, but Smokiemon you said oven cleaner will take that off, Ill have to try. Thanks for the respones guys.

mtccl

I have refinished, painted, sprayed, powder coated several rims over the years. Mine are currently painted after the above process, but I don't have all the pictures. Cookies are easier to paint than Fuchs too.

Anyway, one thing I'ved learned is it is all about durability. Doesn't do any good to paint them with heavy acrylic lacquer that isn't sealed, just to have the first tire mechanic nick the paint off in a big chunk.

If you are going to do it so that you only have to do this once, and it is going to look incredible.....powdercoat them.

Here's a link off one of my ancient websites when my then high school son and I did a set of 1978 bandit snowflake rims for a 1988 T/A. The Phenix Project (circa 2002) Look for the wheels link.

Sandblast whenever your can. Use high speed air powered sanders and sanding bits on grinders to polish aluminum you want to stand out (see above link)

VaSteve

What do you pay for a set of wheels to be powdercoated?

Chwatson

so you did get the fuchs, elliot, eh?

76 911s

When I repainted my fuchs, I used VHT Brake Caliper Paint in Satin Black as it has chemical and brake dust resistance.

drift a 944

oh cool, I had no idea they were anodized!

Yep, once I stripped as much off as I could, I went over everything by hand with 100 grit and then went over everything again with 250. I could have done a far better job on these, but I didnt really have the time otherwise I would use real paint or powdercoat them myself.

Regardless of which approach you take to refinishing the wheels, you should at least do it yourself. Its great knowing you did it yourself and didnt have to pay someone else big bucks to get it done! Also, you can get a powdercoating kit complete with a few different colors for probably around 50 or 60 bucks for a cheap set. It would probably cost you more than that to have them powdercoated somewhere else.

heck yea! 100 bucks for the set, I just couldnt pass it up. I ended up selling my old phone dials on ebay for 125.