375 replies to this topic

[mike.]

Yeah it is. You know it?

[carboy001]

Yeah! Its opposite Hire Station and ATS on Warren Road.

I was going to have mine done there, my dad asked one of the guys there, Vinny I think his name was, but decided against it in the end because of the amount of bits I want doing.

Not far from where I live, pretty much just down the Park Way.

[mike.]

Yeah well one of my mates from school works there, so thats how i'm having mine done. He said they don't normally take any other work on apart from commercial stuff either because their too busy or its just not worth their time when they could make much more money doing other jobs. Mine could be there a couple of months because he only has one evening a week free to work on it! But since i've finished uni for summer, i'm going to be going down in the evenings and helping with some of the time consuming stuff.


Anyway, i've got another update. I've started polishing my wheels


I bought one of these basic metal polishing kits to have a go myself before forking out to have them done professionally. The kits great, comes with the drill mount and all the mops and compounds you need and its dirt cheap: Link

So i cracked that out today. My wheels looked like this:



Not a great picture and to be honest makes that look better than they are because of the flash. They were full of 400 wet&dry sanding marks and although didn't look too bad on the car and still looked resonably shiney, i want the lip and dish of the wheel almost like a mirror.

So i got out the harsh mop with the most abrasive compound and set at them with the drill. Heres the stages i've got though so far.

This was after one quick sweep with the mop, all round the wheel at medium pressure:



The sanding marks started to fade pretty quick. Then i spent abit more time and went round the wheel with hard pressure and spent quite a while on any spots of corrosion:



Sanding marks and corrision were on the way out after that. The marks left on the wheel are chips from the wheel brace, can't really do anything about them though. Then i went round another time, again using pretty hard pressure and taking my time:



Then switched to softer pressure and went round again. The finish was alot more 'glass' like:



Then moved onto the outer lip of the wheel and probably went round the wheel another 2 or 3 times. Heres the result of that:





Got a really nice shine now. They look great! The best part is, thats only using the harshed mop and compound! I've still got another 2 softer mops to use and they should only need a quick once over round the wheel to take effect. I should be able to get an almost chrome effect.

I'd say I spent about 2 hours doing that wheel. I think i'll spend another half an hour on that making sure i've got everywhere done before moving onto the softer compounds. My back was dead and I looked like a coal miner when I came in because of the grey/black compound I was using but i'd say it was worth the effort so far

[carboy001]

Yeah it would have been a side job, they did say it may take a while as they are busy.

The wheel looks ace, worth the money for the kit then. Comes up well.

[stardude]

i used a kit form that guy, the £30ish one. was brilliant! it brought my cosmics from harsh corrosion to nearly mirrors! i know what you mean about the coal miner look though!

i was like a panda, as i wore goggles lol.

have you used the vienna lime yet?

[mike.]

I'm not going to bother with the vienna lime stuff. I'll just wipe the wheels down afterwards with some thinners or similar on a rag, then polish them up and wax them.

[mike.]

Gave the block a good few coats of paint today. Took the old core plugs out, got some fresh shiney ones to go in. Got abit more touching up to do on the block first though:

[mike.]

Well I bought some swarfega metal cleaner/restorer from B&Q and a big container to sit my gearbox in. So i gave my gearbox a coating of that and left it to sit for a while, then got the wirebrush attachments out on the manly 240V drill and got cracking at getting all the crap off it.

It worked pretty well. I got most of the crap off the front and back of the gearbox, but couldn't be bothered spending too long getting it perfectly clean and getting all the muck from every crevice. Then i poured some of the cleaner into the gearbox, left it to sit for a minute or so, then hosed all the box down.

It worked, and removed the layer of sludge out of the bottom of the gearbox. I then dryed it all of, used abit of WD40 inside the gearbox to get rid of all the water, mopped that out with a rag and reoiled all the internap parts.

Looked alrite in the end, i'll be happy to put it back on the block now anyway.

I've also realised that my centre oil pick up can't be fitted without stripping the box out, so that and the hardened diff pin i bought are pretty useless now. Was going to send the box off to GW for a refurb, but looks like hes dissapeared at the mo and i can't wait too long.

Anyway:







Also I gave the block a final coat of paint and cleaned all the excess off all the faces. I've also pressed in my new core plugs. So the engines ready to be built now.

I've got everything from minisport, got all my new bearings and centre main strap, my cam kit from morspeed. So next week i'll start building *gulp*

[mike.]

Just been out and spent about another hour polishing my wheel. Looks great now.

This is after the two softer mops and a quick buff with a microfiber:







Reflections of reflections :

[campr]

Wow, makes me reach for my sunglasses!

Excellent finish!

Rob

[mike.]

Thanks, yeah i'm really pleased with it.

So now that ones ready to go back on the car, then i'll bring another one home and start all over again haha

[campr]

A wise old man (who had built several kit-cars) once told me: If you spend 5 minutes a day on it, it will get done.

I try to work on it regularly, but sometimes it's hard to find time for it.

I put the slicks on my rims today. Not shiny, but menacing nonetheless >)

Keep up the good work! (three more times!).

[mini_mad69]

Thanks, yeah i'm really pleased with it.

So now that ones ready to go back on the car, then i'll bring another one home and start all over again haha

The wheels look fantastic, good job.

What are you going to use to protect them from corroding again. Ive heard a good coat of wax periodicly will keep them looking great and not take the shine away.



Ben

[mike.]

Yeah i just sit down polishing them for an hour or so whenever i can be bothered.

All i'm going to do to protect them is like you say, keep them waxed and clean. I wash my car at least once a week anyway so dirt and stuff shouldn't build up too badly. If i do a long motorway journey or a journey in the wet, i'll give them a quick hose down/clean to remove any salt off them ASAP.

If any corrosion does start, i'll catch it early and it'll just rub off with autosol

[Jamez26]

wheel looks great mate. what you goin to do with the centre/spokes now ? or you just goin to leave them be.