What a difference a day makes

Dinah Washington sang that back in 1959 and it came on the radio this afternoon whilst I was out in the garage. Of course, technically speaking, the second line should have gone something like “fourty-five and a quarter little hours” to be totally accurate, but I was willing to let the lady get away with a little poetic license

After I stopped sulking the other day, I went back out, sanded the black back a bit, cleaned it up and squirted some more paint onto the wheels.

Once it had had a chance to settle, I brought the wheels inside to the warmth of the scullery so they could cure overnight. Removing masking tape with all your fingers crossed is tricky, it turns out, but if you go careful it can be done.

Panel wipe from the paint shop, just like all the stuff I’ve done before – so I’m guessing I just didn’t clean enough and there was some greasy fingerprint or something that the paint didn’t like

On Saturday, we took a trip out to Manchester to see 4parajon and get some of his old tyres swapped over onto my rims. They’re a set of 205/60/13’s, so the extra width on each corner should hopefully give me more stability and grip than the 165/80/13 bicycle tyres that are on there now.

You’d think it was easy to slip a tyre monkey a couple of notes to get the job done on the sly, but it would appear that Easter Saturday in Manchester is neither the time nor the place to try it Eventually, though, Jon tracked down a back-street outfit to do the job and to give the tyre lad due credit, he went slow and careful to avoid trashing Jon’s nice polished X-Pack rims and didn’t even scrape the fresh paint on mine

For all you picture lovers out there, here’s an exciting action shot of the new tyres on the KN Mercurys – freshly repainted ones on the left and grubby old ones on the right …

It was at this point that my OCD reared its head again, as I found myself reaching for the tin of Nitromors to strip the fronts of the other two wheels

If I’m lucky, I’ll be allowed out to play in the garage tomorrow too, which means I can go through all the fun of masking up and spraying for a second time in a week

 

EDIT 25/03/2008:

therealpinto: A problem with Hammerite (at least the “non smooth”) is that it contains silicone, at least I’m told. That makes it practically impossible to re-paint with anything else than Hammerite…

Silicone is very hard to remove, and that’s why you also should stay away from using silicone sealant near something that you might want to paint. Use polyurethane or acrylic based goo instead.

 

dangerousdave: Looking good stu, i have got the lovely task of stripping my other wheels soon…i have been putting it off for too long I dont think il bother repainting them though just polish them to death instead

Ps i recon they look better when they had no paint on the fronts but as thye are your wheels its your choice

 

me: I had thought about it, but the casting is very rough on anywhere other than the outer rim and the face of the spokes – it just looks too rough without paint

Besides, painted is how they looked when they were new … and it’s that retro feel that attracted me when I first saw them

Thanks for confirming suspicions Gustaf – I’ll have to clean the next ones twice as hard

 

dan: nice work stu. havent checked in on this thread for a while, but as great stuff as ever

if you wanted to smooth out the pitting, you could do some filler work, there is an Isopon (the people that make p38) who do a ‘metallic’ version which has aluminium in it, and almost blends in when you sand it… or you can always get the flap wheels out, jack up one side of the car and have it idling in 4th

good for the polishing mops too if you want a nice shine as you can get plenty of heat into it, but make sure its jacked up securly with chocks under the wheels, just incase

keep at it

 

4parajon: They look good Stu………and I thought I had that OCD bad
Let me know if you want them polished, as that will also remove all that rough casting issues as well mate

 

UncleFista: If you don’t want Hammer/smoothrite flaking off within no time at all, you need to use a primer on ally, they do their own “Special metals primer” but basically the paint flakes off ally over time.

Check the back of the tin

I know this from bitter experience, I eventually had the wheels blasted and powdercoated @£20 each…

 

me: Dan – I’m staying away from doing anything like filling or otherwise “finessing” the wheels – partly because then I’d never get them finished, but also because they’re old wheels and it’s nice to retain some of the character that they’ve acquired over the last thirty years

Tony – I had a look for the ‘Special Metals Primer’, but could only find it locally in tins rather than rattle cans After your mentioning it, I had been hoping to do one pair with the primer and one without to see what difference it makes, but we’ll have to save it for a rainy day now

 

Dave: It’s been p*****g down today