Retro Rim Revivial

Hey Peeps

Thought I would share what I have been up this weekend.

As some of you know or have seen pics of. I have been rolling on a set TSW Stealths since I bought my Starlet.
At first I hated them. Then I grew to like them. I also get loads of comments about them so I decided to have a go at breathing some new life into them.

I wanted to do this myself rather than pay to have it done. So I will be doing everything by hand at home.

Here goes:
First I had to borrow a set of wheels to roll around on while mine were off the car.
Got my hands on these:

Im only going to do 2 rims at a time.

This is all the stuff I will be using.


Time to attack the first wheel.
First thing is needed to do was give it a proper clean.
A decade of British roads has not been kind to this wheel.




After removing the balancing weights and scrubbing with Brillo pads and oven cleaner wheel 1 came out like this:

Can really see the state of these wheels now.

Some of the long lost wheel markings showing through once more:




I used a wire brush to remove most the flaking paint and then sanded the whole wheel with emery cloths to get a good key ready for painting and to smooth off some of the curbed areas and rid the surface of corrosion.

Wheel 2:


Cleaned. this one doesnt seem as bad as wheel 1.






Wire brushed and sanded:



I also prepped the centre caps:


Thats as far as I have got so far. I will come back and update this thread as I go.


Matt D

Looks good so far keep us posted

Any updates on these Nippon? Looks like its going well! Thinking of doing my alloys shortly

You should've got a set of venoms as the temporary one's! Also incase you didn't know, TSW stands for Tiger Sport Wheels - makes them sound awesome!

My winter set - razors could do with a refurb so I'll be interested to see your finished results.

The GT is currently sitting on a set of 15x7 TSW Blades, they suit the car quite well I think.

Back in the day huh,when sporting a set of tsw's was the job..lol...Although saying that stealths are legendary at this stage,,,and as for venoms ,,ohh you were really flash if you had them...

Great job though Matt ,,,look forward to seeing the end result...

I have got some updates from this weekend. I'll get them up when I get home.

Right here we go then...

Didnt get a great deal done this weekend as it was raining on Saturday.
But this is what I did get done:

Started off with wheel 1 in filler primer. I used filler primer to help even out some of the uneven areas.


Once the filler primer was dry I took it outside and gave it a sand down with very fine sand paper. Again to make sure it was as smooth as I could get it.



Once this was done I gave the wheel a coat of grey primer to get rid of the yellowness.


Once this was dry I could start with the colour!!!!
I have chosen Peugeot Cossack Grey (metallic) for the final colour.
Here is is straight after painting:



Here it is indoors once the paint was dry:





Its difficult to get a true representation of the colour as it shines loads and reflects the colour of the carpet etc...

Next job is to get a few coats of clear laquer on it to get the true colour, shine and protection.
Also still waiting for new Toyota badges to arrive for the centre caps.
Once thats done I have another 3 wheels to do. Lol.

Its not perfect as can still see little chips where the badly kerbed area was but then again it was never going to be perfect with out having them shot blasted, acid dipped, rewelded etc etc. But that was never the point.
Once it is laquered it think it will defo has its new lease of life like I wanted.
Its looking 10 times better already.

Matt D

very nice!!
like the color

Fantastic,,,great write and tasty workmanship so far...

Definitely getting a belt of my rep stick...

good stuff mate, prep work sucks, it takes ages to do, keep up the good work.

Tanz said:

Fantastic,,,great write and tasty workmanship so far...

Definitely getting a belt of my rep stick...

Click to expand...

Haha! Thanks man.

Nice work mate, coming along well. Always nice the satisfaction you get from doing something like this yourself I feel.

They looks awesome mate, its definately inspired me to do mine, and Im sure you have inspired a few other people to do theres! once youve done them all stick them on your car so we can all see

Great work!

Looks nice mate, I honestly like the yellow haha. Would look good

MarcoGTTurbo said:

They looks awesome mate, its definately inspired me to do mine, and Im sure you have inspired a few other people to do theres! once youve done them all stick them on your car so we can all see

Great work!

Click to expand...

Yeah will do fella. I'll update this post after i have laquered the painted wheel and then again once I have done them all and had them fitted back to the car.

Thanks again everyone.

MD

Hey Guys.
Not forgotten about this thread. Just been busy.

Wheels Laqured.


Centre caps turned up at last!


I have got 2 wheels fitted back to the car now. Will be getting the other 2 wrapped with rubber this weekend. I'll post a pic of the car with the full set on rather than just 2.

In the meantime here are some pics of the dreadful state wheel 4 was in and some of its progress.
This was by far the worst wheel of the bunch.
Cleaning:


After scraping the bubbled and loose paint off:



Super corroded:



Kerbed areas:


After wire brushing:




After going mental with a dremel and sanding, then filler priming and re-sanding:




Pics of all finished wheels fitted to car to follow.

Matt D

Wheels are all finished and fitted.

Before:



After:

sweet much much better

amazing job! Rep'd for the handy guide for other folks too