I have an '86 Fiero GT with the 15" alum wheels. I need to get new tires installed, so now is the time to address the wheels. I think I'd like to strip all the paint off them, thinking about just leaving the center the silver, bare aluminum color. Here's my question, what would be the best way (as well as easy) to strip all the old paint off them? Then, if I do leave them the alum color, should they be painted with clear or just leave them? I've heard you can just leave them, but I'm afraid it will be hard to keep them clean and keep the brake dust at bay.
The center color is hard to get off. I ended up just removing the outside clear, repainted the center and cleared the outside. I would suggest having someone media blast them (not sand blast). If you were going to take off all the color.
Its a toss up about clearing them. If you do, it will corrode under the clear (you see lots of factory wheels like that), and you have to do it again. If you keep your car clean, just keep the bare wheels clean. If my cars have cleared alloys, I strip them and leave them bare. I can polish them when I want. If they have a dull finish, I keep them clean with a scotchbrite pad. In winter you can spray bare ones with something like WD40, Pam, etc to keep the salt off them. You do need to still clean them and respray every week. My Astro, SuperBee, GT40 all had bare aluminum wheels and I drove them year round.
I have refinished two sets of GT lace rims. The 1st set I did back in 2008. Used a glass bead blaster to remove the clear from the outer rim and to scuff the center to prep it for paint. We sprayed those with high solid, scratch resistant base/clearcoat, nothing fancy. They held up for the 5 years I had them on my car. I wasn't happy with the way I had sanded the outer rim...was more of a matte finish than the shiny, factory aluminum look. So a few months ago i refinished my original 15" GT rims. We sprayed them with the same high solid, scratch resistant clear. So far so good though, time will tell. I drive my car all year round but we don't have snow or salt here in nor cal.
The way I stripped the second set is with Jasco paint remover but It took a lot of time to get all of the paint out of the center lace. I brushed on a heavy coat and let it sit for about an hour. Then used plastic and wooden scrapers to remove it. Took about 3-4 coats per wheel. After the final scraping, I used a power washer to do a good cleaning.
I used various grades of sand paper to hand finish the outer rim. We masked off the outer rim, painted the lace black and then sprayed the entire rim with the clearcoat. People have told me that Jasco will absorb into the aluminum and eventually it will cause the paint to lift. Like i said, it's been 5 months, I drive it daily and I run it through car washes. I havent found any evidence of separation yet. I did let the rims sit for about 2 weeks before painting though. Maybe that was enough time for the Jasco to off-gas or evaporate.
There is a lot (emphasis on LOT) of manual labor that goes into refinishing a set of wheels at home. I've done it in the past, I will never do it again. The easiest way to fix up an old set of wheels is to take them to a shop that does wheel refinishing and let them do it. I had a spare set of 15" Fiero wheels refinished three years ago at a shop on Eight Mile in Detroit for $400. It was worth every penny.
Thanks for all the input guys, appreciate it. A little bit about how this car is used. It's a low milage car and it's not used in the winter, nor driven in the rain (unless I get caught, lol). It will only be used on nice days to go to a car show, or driven to work now and then. This being the case, sounds like I'd be better off leaving the clear off. I was thinking about just leaving them "aluminum" color, like the ones in the photos below....
I had a set of old Keystone 5 spoke mags on a 66 Nova years ago. To keep the brushed / machined look on the outer portion of the wheel. I just jacked up the rear of the car, front wheels blocked with good jack stands under the rear axel and fired up the car. I put it in first and let it idle. The first time I used something like 150 grit sand paper to get the years of corrosion and nasty off of it. Then went progressively finer until it had a bright shiny look.
Yes it may not have been the safest thing on the planet but it worked. Took an afternoon and some beers. I think I work leather gloves...
When I purchased my '88 Formula the prior owner had stripped the paint off the diamond-lace wheels. They claimed they used a heavy grade aircraft quality paint stripper, heavily coated on, with a good deal of physical labor on each wheel. Why the black was removed I do not know.
Even then after the work there was up close a clear differentiation between the polished lip that was already there and the actual color under the wheels. That's something you'll need to keep in mind. The photos of that maroon GT look pretty good, but when you get really close up on the car if you have a trained "Fiero eye" you will be able to see the differences. You'll have to do a complete re-finish job to really make the wheels look good, which can equal time + money (or just a WHOLE lot of time). It'll likely depend on the overall condition of the wheels too in how much work they will need once the black is stripped.
I actually ended up putting the black right back on the wheels shortly after owning the car. I couldn't stand the look.
If you want to keep the bare aluminum look take them to a powder coater and have the blast and coat with clear powder coat or have them done in silver powder coat. They will not corrode and will be a snap to clean.
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II 88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby) www.fieroking.com
I gave up on my 15" lace wheels, they're too darn heavy, look a bit small, and even when redone nicely, they're real PIA to keep clean; too any nooks & crannies. I just brought a 4 of these in 17" with tires for about $800 can't wait to finish painting My 87 and put them on.
I gave up on my 15" lace wheels, they're too darn heavy, look a bit small, and even when redone nicely, they're real PIA to keep clean; too any nooks & crannies. I just brought a 4 of these in 17" with tires for about $800 can't wait to finish painting My 87 and put them on.
Use Klean-Strip Aircraft Paint Remover. It will eat the clear coat and paint off easily. It's really nasty stuff. You'll be Amazed. It is by far the most effective stripper I've ever experienced. DON'T USE RUSTOLEUM AIRCRAFT REMOVER. It is nowhere near as effective!
I really like the bare aluminum look. When I stripped mine tho, the aluminum itself was not uniform in color. For ease of cleaning, I went with black. You shouldn't have a problem with that if you're not driving all the time.
I know it sounds strange but I stripped my lace wheels with CRC gasket remover. That is some wicked stuff. Sprayed it on let it sit for about a half hour scraped off the big stuff and then sprayed again. After second spraying I pressure washed and they were almost 100% clean. Very little clean up after.
I know it sounds strange but I stripped my lace wheels with CRC gasket remover. That is some wicked stuff. Sprayed it on let it sit for about a half hour scraped off the big stuff and then sprayed again. After second spraying I pressure washed and they were almost 100% clean. Very little clean up after.
The flammable type of brake cleaner spray will strip grease and paint off in a heartbeat!
Did our Fiero rims come in different colors? The reason why I ask is my Fiero rims are gray in the center but a lot of you are stating BLACK. Can anyone show me some pictures of their redone rims to give me an idea how they would look?
Did our Fiero rims come in different colors? The reason why I ask is my Fiero rims are gray in the center but a lot of you are stating BLACK. Can anyone show me some pictures of their redone rims to give me an idea how they would look?
88s had black rims. 86-87 had grey. If I remember correctly.
88s had black rims. 86-87 had grey. If I remember correctly.
N90 Diamond Spoke Alum 15 x 7 1986-87 Stamped XBZ 10049057 Light Gray (Made by Western Wheel) N90 Diamond Spoke Alum 15 x 7 1986-87 Stamped XBZ 10054562 Dark Gray (Made by Western Wheel) Manufacturer stamp ATS
88 also had a gold option.
PH0 Diamond Spoke Alum 15 x 6 1988 Front Stamped XRP 10104414 Black (19P) XUZ (Made by Western Wheel) 37mm Offset PH0 Diamond Spoke Alum 15 x 7 1988 Rear Stamped XRS 10104415 Black (19P) XXJ (Made by Western Wheel)
PH0 Diamond Spoke Alum 15 x 6 1988 Front Stamped XRR 10104416 Gold (60P) XXF (Made by Western Wheel) 37mm Offset PH0 Diamond Spoke Alum 15 x 7 1988 Rear Stamped ??? 10104417 Gold (60P) (Made by Western Wheel)
[This message has been edited by carbon (edited 08-23-2013).]
As mentioned above by Carbon in addition to black, '88s also had gold diamond lace wheels as well. All '88 Formulas came with black 15" diamond lace wheels and '88 GT's came with black 15" diamond lace wheels, but '88 GT owners could specifically request a gold 15" diamond lace wheel. It had a specific RPO option (I **believe** it was no extra cost) that would have been applied to whatever other options came on the car. The '88 Formula could not be ordered with the gold wheel option, but some owners have run them with gold wheels.
1988 Formula with black 15" diamond lace wheels
1988 GT with black 15" diamond lace wheels
1988 GT with gold 15" diamond lace wheels
The gold '88 wheels are fairly valuable over all other wheel options, especially if they're tied to a '88 Fiero GT that has the gold wheel specific RPO option. Depending on what figures you use for production, there were roughly 5,400 '88 Formulas made and roughly 6,800 '88 GTs made. Since all '88 Formulas had to have black lace wheels and GTs could have either or, lets say maybe just under less than half the '88 GTs got gold lace wheels. Even with that figure, it means roughly 3,000 TOTAL sets of '88 diamond lace wheels out of over 12,000 were gold wheels. Then factor in "dead" '88 GTs and yada yada yada and you get the idea.
[This message has been edited by Fiero84Freak (edited 08-23-2013).]
[/URL]
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/francis4
