Fat 5's Refinished with H centercap Mod
08-11-2016, 09:29 AM
#1
Fat 5's Refinished with H centercap Mod
Hi all,
Just thought I'd share my refinished Fat 5's that turned out better than expect with less work than expected. I searched a lot of threads regarding refinishing these wheels or similar but most were about getting a mirror finish on them. I was looking for a stock refinish because I like the iridescent effect the machine grooves give. I figured I'd have to strip the clear coat, do some light wet sanding, polish with mothers aluminum polish and then apply a new clear coat. After I stripped the wheels I found the aluminum to be in good shape and decided it wasn't worth sanding to get rid of minor scrapes on the lips so I just applied the mothers polish which made them look fantastic. I then applied several coats of Dupli-Color wheel Clear Coat and let them cure for a few days. The last step was to wet sand the clear coat from 1000 to 3000 grit to get rid of the roughness/orange peel the clear left then machine buff it with 3M scratch remover. They turned out about 95% new. The hardest part was removing all the old clear coat but it wasn't that bad. I spent about 3-4 hrs per wheel.
The 2nd part was installing Honda H center caps. From my research Honda makes two different caps that are the same diameter as the fat 5's. One with just the H and the other with a box around the H. The cheaper one cost $7 per cap but the fit/size isn't the same as the originals. The snaps are much shorter so they don't really snap into the wheel grooves, they're more of a press fit and they end up recessed about 1/8" from the wheel. I ended up finding a set on ebay from a Chinese seller for $16. I wanted them to fit like the originals so I designed an add on piece with the snaps that I could glue these onto and they would be just like stock. After I designed the add on I 3D printed them. All I had to do was dremel off the existing snaps of the new caps and epoxy them on. If anyone is interested in the 3D file to have them printed let me know. I work in the 3D printing industry so I didn't pay and the technology I used is quite expensive to make this logical but there are some online services that use lower resolution ABS technology that could still work and be a lot cheaper.
Just thought I'd share my refinished Fat 5's that turned out better than expect with less work than expected. I searched a lot of threads regarding refinishing these wheels or similar but most were about getting a mirror finish on them. I was looking for a stock refinish because I like the iridescent effect the machine grooves give. I figured I'd have to strip the clear coat, do some light wet sanding, polish with mothers aluminum polish and then apply a new clear coat. After I stripped the wheels I found the aluminum to be in good shape and decided it wasn't worth sanding to get rid of minor scrapes on the lips so I just applied the mothers polish which made them look fantastic. I then applied several coats of Dupli-Color wheel Clear Coat and let them cure for a few days. The last step was to wet sand the clear coat from 1000 to 3000 grit to get rid of the roughness/orange peel the clear left then machine buff it with 3M scratch remover. They turned out about 95% new. The hardest part was removing all the old clear coat but it wasn't that bad. I spent about 3-4 hrs per wheel.
The 2nd part was installing Honda H center caps. From my research Honda makes two different caps that are the same diameter as the fat 5's. One with just the H and the other with a box around the H. The cheaper one cost $7 per cap but the fit/size isn't the same as the originals. The snaps are much shorter so they don't really snap into the wheel grooves, they're more of a press fit and they end up recessed about 1/8" from the wheel. I ended up finding a set on ebay from a Chinese seller for $16. I wanted them to fit like the originals so I designed an add on piece with the snaps that I could glue these onto and they would be just like stock. After I designed the add on I 3D printed them. All I had to do was dremel off the existing snaps of the new caps and epoxy them on. If anyone is interested in the 3D file to have them printed let me know. I work in the 3D printing industry so I didn't pay and the technology I used is quite expensive to make this logical but there are some online services that use lower resolution ABS technology that could still work and be a lot cheaper.
08-13-2016, 08:56 AM
#5
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