hey, just a quick question, i have an f4i with the black wheels as standard but a previous owner painted them a kind of repsol orange but did a very bad job and it looks terrible you can still see the original colour in places around the edge of the rim, i just wanted to know if i went at them with paint stripper (aircraft stripper) or something will it just remove the bad orange or will it take off the original black as well ?

 

I wouldnt suggest aircraft stripper if your trying to salvage the paint underneath. It will remove all the paint on the wheel, including the original. If you end up going that route, take your tires off as I think the aircraft stripper will wreak havoc on your tires.

If it were me, I'd go down to your local autoparts store, one that also carries paint supplies. And pick up some laquer thinner.( again, remove the tire) get a rag soaked and start rubbing the wheel. You should be able to gauge where to stop. Once your at the point you want to stop, rinse the rim off with water. you really don't want to let the thinner pool on the rim or it will eat the factory paint. If you keep going, the laquer thinner will eventually take off the original paint as well, but its pretty hardy and can stand up to quite a bit. Although, your black wheels will more than likely be dull afterwards.

Another thought would be to wet sand the wheels with 1000 grit sand paper. You should be able to get the orange off while saving the black underneath. Then, once the orange is all gone, take some 2000 grit and sand it again. After that, you should be able to polish the wheel back some. the benefit here is you can leave the tire on the rim.

Another thought would be to buy one of those aluminum polishing ***** for your drill. with a cutting compound, you should be able to rub off all of the orange paint without damaging the black under it too much...again, you can leave the tire on the rim.

if all fails, you can always send the rims out to be powercoated any color you want.

some ideas, hopefully one of them works for you. But I'd stay far away from aircraft stripper.

 

cheers thanks for the help, il try and see how it goes..

 

some places around here offer powder coating at pretty decent prices - few friends have done it.

Might be something to look into.

 

I agree with the other two posts. I custom paint bikes as a side job in my free time and i would suggest just getting them re-powdercoated and save yourself the headache of trying to strip them, the aircraft remover will deffinatly take them down to metal for sure. also if you do end up trying to strip them and got to metal there is some good info online about just polishing them.

 

I agree with two posts as well.

 

That NateDiesel sounds like one smart guy.

 

yea i do actually plan on getting them powdercoated in the near future but i just wanted to do something with them for now cos they look so bad just till i get the money together for the powdercoating.. thanks for the advice peoples..

just out of interest i live in Ireland p.coating 2 wheels over here would cost $250 how much around your way ?

 

he sure does... especially since what he said was already suggested by an equally smart guy... jk

cheapest I've seen is 150.00 for the set.

 

Details Squidy - details hah.

$150 is a good price. I debate on trying to get my whole bike redone at times, but its probably not worth it at this point.