Courtshark

Now that I finally have these wheels at home where I can mess with them, I sat down tonight with my dremel and went to town. I used a narrow brass wire polishing brush, going very carefully over each bolt head to remove the surface rust. I think the results are outstanding! Below is an in-progress shot. The two on the far right have not been touched. The center bolt is partially polished. The one on the far left is "done," though I will go back over all of them with a small buffer once I'm done with removing the surface rust. Takes about 1 - 2 minutes per bolt. At 40 per wheel, this will take a while. But worth the effort!

What do you folks recommend I do to seal these to prevent re-rusting? Testor's makes a brush-on clear coat. Would that work?

Note the big red caliper peeking out, too

SharkSkin

Poster child for why I'm not excited about getting this type of wheel for my car... Not while it's a year-round daily driver, anyway.

You could do a better job if you just replaced the bolts and re-seal -- you could get the aluminum cleaned up real nice without scratching it, and you wouldn't have to worry about the rust you can't see.

Courtshark

Mine is an occassional weekend rider, so no worries there. I basically won't drive the car if there's rain in the forecast. I'll only need to worry about rust from when I wash the car, so I'll have to pay special attention to drying the wheels.

And how can I re-seal these wheels myself? That requires a massive special machine that tightens all 40 bolts at the same time. 20 of my closest friends (2 drills per person) won't all fit around one 18" rim, let alone the 40 drills necessary!

I'm actually really happy with the results so far. It's all surface rust, so I can actually see it all on just about every bolt. Removing the bolts and reinstalling them is a dangerous proposition. It can be done, but I'd rather not break the seals on these wheels unless absolutely necessary. Plus it's going to be a huge PITA to actually get the bolts from Kinesis, who is now owned by another company.

Kevin Michael

You would think a company like Kinesis with their overpriced wares, would at least use STAINLESS STEEL bolts.

Courtshark

I agree. Possibly a weighting issue prevented this? There are 40 bolts per wheel. That has to add up. These wheels are ridiculously light, so clearly a lot of thought went into making them that way.

FWIW, Kinesis did offer to replace all the bolts for me for free if I paid to ship them out to them in CA. Still might take them up on that offer, but so far, I am pleased with my efforts to shine them myself. Apparenltly no one else is...

Robert_H

I think that you are on the right track there. Yes, it could be done a whole lot faster (and easier) if Kinesis did the job, but what you are doing is fine. It just will take a lot of work, that's all.

You might want to think about making some sort of mask (maybe in the shape of a cone with the end cut off) for shooting some clear coat over the finished results. Or how about a good coat of wax.

They will look very nice when all finished. Keep it up.

Kevin Michael

I think your doing a fine job! I do not envy the effort though. That sure is a lot of work.
Kevin

SharkSkin

I didn't mean to come across like that... I see that it's a PITA job -- I had 3-piece wheels many years ago on one of my toys and I hated going through what you're going through right now.

I was just trying to suggest an approach that would take some of the pain out of the process.

IIRC some people have taken their 3-piece wheels apart and replaced the hardware -- I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Just tighten slowly and evenly.

Courtshark

I.A.G. It was the two negative posts in a row that made me think I might be wasting my time... No worries.

As far as removing them, this can be done safely but only if you remove and replace them one at a time, and from opposite sides of the rim. I spoke with Kinesis about this and they refused to endorse it. They claimed it was a safety hazard. OTOH, two respected wheel shops near me said go for it (Wheel Worx and Ye Olde Wheel Shoppe).

Another problem, though, is that these bolts are designed to be torqued once and then chucked.

Thus, I am doing whatever I can do to avoid having to replace them. I had to special order more dremel bits today, though, because just doing the one wheel completely ate my lone brass wire brush polishing bit. (for those with dremels: part number dre537 and dre443 are ideal for this task). So I won't be done until those show up.

jim dorociak

How is your wheel project going? I am restoring 40 bolt Speedline and OZ racing wheels and just got a set of Kinesis wheels super cups so I will be doing those.

On the Speedline wheels and OZ racing wheels the bolts are 10.9 strength and can easily be refinished. I have been having mine replated with nickel that is more durable than paint bolt heads.

What size is the set you have? 8 & 10's x 18? I did not realize Kinesis made a set of wheels that looked like the Speedline 3.6 Turbo wheel.

805-498-7261 Jim

Courtshark

I finished it all up by dremeling them all. They will likely rust over again, which stinks after all the effort I went through! Still trying to decide what to coat them with as a rust preventor. Some of the bolts were so severely rusted that I couldn't get it all off, at least not using the means at my disposal. Eventually I would like to replace them all. Nickel sounds like a good plan. Please let us/me know how that turns out.

Yes, they are 8's & 10's x 18.

Courtshark

Photo of the finished product