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Magnesium Wheel Refurbishing

Yoda

Yoda

PCGB Member
Member
I am going to have my magnesium wheels refurbished and have been gathering opinions / info from people to try and work out what my options are and where to go. Up until last year the place to go seemed to be Diamond Styling - not cheap but I have seen Chris's work and it was fantastic. He has sold his business now and jury is still out on the new guy.

Quite a few companies will not refurbish Magnesium wheels for two main reasons. Firstly, unlike most alloy wheels they are deemed to have a limited life and will deteriorate with age (now 15 years old) so when companies refurbish them they often find problems when they strip the wheels. Secondly, the wheels are porus and can absorb moisture when not treated/painted correctly and due to problems witrh the finish they have a high number of returns.

The basic things to look out for appear to be:
- if blasting the wheels to remove paint, use of soft/pearl beads to sand blast to maintain detail eg lettering on the wheel
- minimise time exposed to air / moisture after stripping but before painting to reduce the amount of moisture absorbed
- heat the wheel before painting / powder coating to remove all traces of moisture otherwise the finish will bubble / flake when the wheel heats up on track
- do not paint/coat the mating surface especially if the wheels are to be used on track

When talking to refurbishing companies who take on magnesium wheel, it becomes very obvious who knows what they are doing vs those that will treat them like other alloys. The two options for colouring the wheels appear to be paint or powder coating followed by laquer. There are pros and cons with both.

Paint
+ original finish (check paint code), clarity of lettering, can be sanded during prep for better finish
- more expensive (labour cost), less durable

Powder coating
+ very durable, process removes moisture
- coating is thicker so some clarity of lettering can be lost, not original

Ollie had his wheels painted by Jasmine and he is very happy with the result - I am hoping to have a good look at Donington next week. I have also seen a set that have been powder coated by a company called BJV Engineering that were also very good. Paint finish is approx twice the price of poweder coating.

I thought I would post this for two reasons - share info as it seems to be a minefield and also to see if anyone has any other information / experience before I take the plunge.

What do you guys think?
 
You have posted this just in time. I knew that Diamond Styling had moved, but I didn't know that the business had been sold. The chap I spoke to last week sounded like he knew what he was doing.

From what I can gather, another key thing is that some restorers "dip" wheels to remove the old finish and this is a big NO NO for our wheels as they are pourous.

I have a set of wheels I want to get done. In fact, I would have taken them to Diamond Styling tomorrow or Monday if I had not read this.

Group buy?
 
I faced a few tough decisions when I took mine to Autofarm to get sorted as they were buckled too.

I think if you are having them refinished it would be a wise move to have them checked to see if they are still true or have a slight deformation, as I never noticed the buckle when driving the car. Perhaps Autofarm were pulling a fast one (don't believe they were) but I think it is a good call on wheels that are as old as these.

The total cost per wheel for an excellent restoration was £135.00 which included the straightening. In my opinion this was money well spent and I will factor this in every so often as part of the general restoration of the car.

Yoda, please feel free to inspect them at Donnington on Friday, I will be there from 8am onwards. See you then.

Cheers

Ollie
 
I've met the guy at Diamond (Gareth) who certainly knows his onions....what's more he seems to know a lot about wheels too.

He did a set of TT rims for me and I'll use him to refurb a spare set of splitties (Saving up) as he uses a Diamond cutting process (very rare) Seen a lot of Fusch wheels he has there and the finish was perfection.

I think Gareth worked with the previous owner before he bought the company and I know he's in regular contact.
 
Interesting,
Spoke to Autofarm over a year ago about refinishing and was advised that repainting magnesium wheels doesn't last very long, so simple have them bead blasted & repainted as cheaply as possible (which I did & the finish is holding up pretty well). Maybe they've found a process their more confident with, certainly Brian Goff at Jasmine has been dealing is Porsche wheels for quite a long time now.
9m powder coat the wheels, hand sand and then paint or laquer to taste - but it's not a cheap solution.

Tony
 
I had mine powder coated at BJV the finish is good, not excellent but more than passable. The price is VERY reasonable. You get what you pay for(mostly). Diamond styling wanted about £100 per wheel BJV more like £40. Once the corrosion starts it does'nt stop and I would reckon that a set of painted wheels would last 2-3 years before needing doing again, powder coated may last a touch longer. There was a time when powder coating wheels was a no no. But modern powders have lower curing temperatures which don't effect the wheels hardness/tempering.
Pearl blasting is definately the best way to strip them. Though i wonder if it's overkill. I think the magnesium/alloy mix used in our wheels is tougher than many will lead you to believe and a lot of the scare stories I reckon stem from older type designs (ferrari mags are particularly bad).
It would be nice to hear from those who have had there mags done say three-four years ago to comment on how they have faired.
 
Ollie - BJV also run the rims to check they are true and can straighten moderate issues. Any serious damage they have said they will not do.

Laurence - do you have some close up pics of your rims? I saw aa set there and the finish looked pretty good although they were black. If it is passable at 6 inches that is ok, if they are only passable at 6 ft that is more of a problem!!

Regards
 
Yoda, I believe Laurence is at FOS today so may be late in a response.

The black wheels you saw were probably his, they do look good on a yellow car.

There are some photos (not close up) on the bromley pageant thread.
 
Yoda,

I need to get my GT3 RS original wheels refurbed
the last company could not do them
can you ask you chap


cheers

tim
 
Hi Tim

Not sure who is my chap - if you mean bjv engineering then here is the link. Give them a call and speak to Brian or Andrew if you can and explain what you want / condition of the wheel etc. He asked to see my wheels before he would comment / price up etc.

http://www.wheelrefurbishing.co.uk/

Regards
 
I have been giving this lots of thought and here are my conclusions.

Firstly, I am not sure I can agree with Laurence when he says that once the corrosion starts, it doesn't stop. Having trawled the net, it seems that there are treatments, mainly used in aircraft maintainance, which stops and prevent the corrosion returning. You need to specifically treat the corrosion before painting. If done correctly, that area has as much chance of corroding again as any other part of the wheel.

From all I have heard and read, I am not sure that any wheel restorers do this and therefore there is a risk of the corrosion returning. The question then becomes whether any wheel restorer can be pursuaded to carry out the treatment. If I were them, I wouldn't as they have no way of knowing how it will effect the finished product! However, I guess a few calls are in order.

The next question is what finish to put on. This seems to me to come down to durability against originality. Now, if you cannot tell the difference between powder coating and painting, I would say that powder coating is the way to go. However, one of the things I really want to see is the lettering on the wheels. But then again, I have a problem because a couple of my wheels have been sprayed so much, the lettering is already blurred and I don't know how good it will be when stripped. I therefore would really like to decide what finish to have after I have seen them stripped. If I spend the extra for painting so I can see the writing properly, but after stipping it is found that the writing is in a poor state anyway, I would be a little miffed!

Finally, there is the originality issue. As our cars get older and more collectable, certain details will become important. I beleive having the right wheels adds £2-3K to the value of the car and if the writing cannot be seen properly, it might lead somebody to think the wheels were no good. This might effect value.

So, IMO, the ideal would be to find a company that can stip the wheels properly, treat the corrosion with the right stuff and then, based on the condition of the lettering, eiother paint or powder coat, charging accordingly. I don't think that company exists!
 
Yoda , from the front the wheels look A1, being Powder coat (thicker than normal paint) the lettering is not quiet as pronounced but is ok. Some of the lettering has worn anyway from previous refurbs. The inner rims where not finished so neatly and there are a few powder inperfections (nothing too serious just being picky) Unless your the type who cleans the inside of his wheels regularly you wont notice it and it will soon get covered in brake dust! Those who have seen then say they look good fwiw. I will try to post up a closer pic at some point..
 
Simon - Andrew at BJV said they use a corrosion inhibitor specifically for mag wheels but I don't know what it is. May be worth a call but they seemed quite switched on. I never asked if they would paint them but it might be worth a try, they seem pretty flexible so I am sure they could.

Laurence - if you get a chance, I would love to see a few close ups of your wheels and lettering. I don't think my wheels have been refurbished before and the lettering is very crisp. I am tempted by the powder coating and can live without it being the original finish. I would however like the lettering to be clear which I don't think will happen with powder coating as it is definitely thinker.

I'll give Diamond Styling another call next week and see what they say. I am also slightly restricted by the fact that I only have one set of wheels so it easier for me to find a place that offers a drive in drive out service (BJV do, Jasmine don't, not sure about some of the others).

Decisions, decisions!!
 
Feroz -I have a spare set of wheels if your car is not parked on the road.

Indeed, Gareth did work for Chris at Diamond Styling and has bought the business, Chris is travelling around in a big f@ck off motorhome, but still available for consultnacy, apparently.

Gareth has just retored a pair of chipped BBS alloys for me and Tim, he also did a set for Rancey.

The lathe they use is ex-Rolls Royce and about seventy years old!! They don't dip wheels but gently bead blast them to remove corrosion. They are one of the few companies able to recondition Fuchs wheels.

I have been using them and recommending them for upto ten years now -no other company seems to compare.
 
Feroz,
As you know my wheels were powder coated and then the rims diamond turned and lacquered by BJV. They had been refurbed at least once before (they were already powder coated when I bought them), and the lettering is still good and clear. When you think about it powder coating is really not much thicker than a few coats of paint plus lacquer. I'm pretty convinced that due to the extra durability and resistance to brake dust that powder coating is the way forward - particularly on a car that is tracked.
By the way, I'm picking up a new 'spare' set of wheels, hopefully this week. You would actually be doing me a favour by borrowing them as I haven't yet got a garage to store them in (offer accepted on garage last week - lawyers currently doing their thing ..........), and I think I've tried the "they'll only be there for a couple of days darling" line once too often. Indeed depending on how these new rims look (I haven't seen them yet) I may well want BJV to refurb them, so you could do me a double favour by taking them up to them when you pick yours up !

Jamie
 
Quick update. I picked my car up from Diamond Styling a couple of weeks ago with freshly refurbished Magnesium wheels so I thought I would share how I got on. Gareth is a no nonsense straight up guy, good facilities and they seem to do a lot of wheels. The wheels have come back looking really very good and it is surprising what a difference it makes to the appearance of the car. The surface is very good, all marks and nicks have completely gone and the wheels were perfectly true.

Being very fussy, there a few things that I have noticed that may be of interest. The bead blasting seems to have worked and the writing is still quite clear - not quite the same as before but good overall. Definitely better than powder coated wheels that I have seen. The mating surfaces were left in original finish and a coating of copper grease applied - he seems happy to finish as you would like, just tell him. The colour is pretty close to original but it isn't 100% perfect. I have a couple of spare unrefurbished (and a little tatty) magnesium wheels and the colour is ever so different. The original finish looks to have a slight gold fleck in it making the colour look brighter. I think there is actually a specific paint code for the wheels rather than alloy wheel silver.

Overall, very happy and a good drive in drive out service if that is what you want. He will also do lose wheels and there is a pick up / drop off service available. Thanks for the recommendation.
 
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