jwillman

I acquired a set of phone dials last year at a bargain price.

They are in great shape in comparision to the man hole covers on the car today. They do have some paint chips and minor indentations in a very few spaces.

I plan to repaint them and was curious as to how to deal with the few indentations. Paint is still intact so not sure if sanding will get rid of all of the marks.

Center caps have a porsche emblem similar to the hood emblem held on by push clips on a post. I want to pull those off to repaint the center caps but don't want to snap off a post. I assume I can get replacement fastners like what is used on the hood emblem assuming the pins are the same size.

Suggestions on smoothing out the identations and dealing with the emblem removal welcome!

Randy V

On the wheel dings, use a Dremel with grinder attachment to smooth them out - yours do not appear to be deep enough to warrant applying a bondo-type filler.

Re. the center caps - you can use a small jeweller's screwdriver to carefully spread the prongs apart enough to slide them off the posts. If done correctly, the fasteners can be reused.

joejoe

For the center capsuse a small flat screwdriver and bend the tangs up. If they do not break you can use a hammer to reseat and reuse. When I did the sets of phonedials for my cars I sanded with progressivly finer sandpaper. There are a couple of ways you can go:

1 sand down to metal, this will require a good primer then paint. I have noticed that the wheels I did this way now have a patina that is almost a goldish color. The paint I used was duplicolor silver for wheels (101 I believe) and clear for wheels.

2 sand the paint to the white primer, use filler primer, sand smooth, then paint. These wheels stil have a nice silver color. These wheels I used same silver, but used duplicolor high temp clear. It seems to go on a bit thicker and is not as prone to runs.

3 rough the paint to take off clear that is on them, use a filler primer and sand smooth, then paint.

This is how I have done different sets of wheels. The high temp clear seems less prone to chips and would suggest it used. Hope this helps.

jwillman

Thanks Joe and Randy.

The clips on the first cap both split has I tried to pry the first tang back a bit so I would suspect I will have the same luck with the others. The emblems are smaller that the hood emblem but perhaps the posts are the same size.

Had to tap it out to seperate and appears some adhesive was used as well as the pin locks. Are these a factory cap solution or after market / home grown?

I guess I will chip off the old adhesive. What adhesive should I use when reassembling, something like JB weld?

I was also planning to use the Duplicolor silver. I will try and find the high temp clear.

h011yw00d

^^^ My phonies' center caps just have the silver crest indention as on right. Not sure about after market or not on the colored crests.

pcar928fan

Those were home grown there Jim. Factory never did anything quite like that. At least not that I am aware of. The factory caps like yours do have those two holes, but they are smaller. Clearly these were drilled out to fit the crest in place.