Good Morning everyone, this is my first post on this fanastic site. I've researched these forums so many times to gather info for a multitude of projects on our Porsches, so I'd like to give back and make my first of many contributions here.

We have a beautiful set of 18" Kinesis Supercup 3 piece wheels on our 993. But there are two problems...one is that this car is driven everyday in any weather condition and two, we live in NJ where the roads are frequently neglected and riddled with potholes...oh and the car is lowered.

This is the 4th time I am rebuilding one of these wheels, so I've pretty much become an expert at it. These wheels are no longer made, and repairing the outer lip (the piece that always gets the worst damage) through wheel specialists can only be done once or twice before the aluminum fatigues and is rendered useless. So here's where Thatcher Schultz comes in to save the day by providing me the elusive outer lips for the repair.

Follow along as I explain how to perform this pretty easy job and saving some cash along the way...

 

You guys are good sports! Right here we go...tools needed:

a nice block of wood
5lb hammer
steel wool
some sort of "V" or "L" shaped sharp metal tool (this one is an Xacto)
utility knife
razor blade
a piece of acrylic or some sort of hard plastic with nice sharp edges
3/8" ratchet
10mm socket
6"-8" 3/8" extension
8mm 12 point socket
torque wrench (3/8" drive)
blue loctite
caulk gun
dow corning 832 RTV (could also use grey Permatex RTV)
and a 6 pack of beer...

 

Here's a close up of the Dow Corning stuff. Now I've used the grey Permatex with excellent results I just wanted to try the good stuff to see what it was all about. In the end they were very similar, their compounds were much stiffer than regular home depot type silicone RTV which I thought had too much flex. Anyway, I google this 832 stuff and found only 1 company that had it and it was a hassle to just buy 2, they wanted some silly minimum order like 6 or something. I'll have to look for the receipt to let you know where it came from.

 

 

Dope, I'll be rebuilding mine once the body shop is finished with the car. Subscribed!

 

PICTURES!

 

more pictures of the wheels, less pictures of you kissing your significant other.

seriously?????

 

 

If Diane is the OP, I vote for more pics of her without Pablo.

 

yep. I double vote this too... les pablo option more diane

 

Here's a close-up of the "V" tool to help scrape out the old RTV from between the two halves...I suppose any similar tool you may have will work, I just happened to have this guy handy at the time.

 

This image made Jack Daniels my best friend for the day...the busted up lip. It's always the right rear and almost always exacerbated AFTER getting a flat tire from hitting the pothole in the first place. This wheel needs some lovin." No doubt having a 285/30R18 rear tire makes matters worse.

 

Here's a close-up. This lip has already been repaired once and the experts refuse to repair it a second time because of stress fractures in attempting a second repair. Aluminum doesn't like to be bent back into shape more that once.

 

Right, let's get to it then. Using your 3/8" ratchet with a 6"-8" extension and 10mm socket, begin breaking the nuts loose on the inside of the wheel. If it has loctite, and it should, you'll need to use a little muscle to break them free. Don't worry about breaking the bolts though, they're pretty tough.

 

Oops,wrong image. This is the image that goes with the previous post. The image above showing the outside of the wheel is where you counterhold the 12 point 8mm bolt while removing the nut on the inside. Try not to turn the bolt though, if you are going to reuse your outer lip you'll end up gouging the surface since the backs of the bolts have a serration to help them bite into the outer lip.