My first attempt at Refinishing and Polishing 914 Fuchs Options

[74porsche914]

What do you guys think of my first set of wheels I refinished? I am pretty happy with the way they turned out, especially for a 20 year old! Please no comments about how I shouldn't have painted the inserts. I think painted inserts look better on certain cars and my car is a driver so I'm not going for a factory look anyway.

Steps I used for Refinishing:

First I removed the anodizing using Easy-Off oven cleaner. I did two coats for around 35 minutes for each. Then I began sanding the pedals using a DA 6" rotational sander with 220, 400, and 600. These were very pitted on my wheels and using a DA sander saved a ton of time and really planed them out nicely. I next moved on to dry sanding the lips. I used 80, 120, 220, 320, and 400 grit. This was the longest and most agonizing part of the wheels. Next, I dry sanded the pedals and flats with 400 grit. After this I moved onto wet sanding the lips and pedals with 400, 600, 1000, 1500, 2000, and 3000. I did all the lips first then moved onto pedals. After this I masked and sprayed the back parts of the wheels with silver. Then I began the polishing process using a wool car buffer pad and Mother's polishing compound (power ball compound). Next, I used a power ball mini to get areas unaccesable by the buffer and went over the pedals again. Finally, I masked the polished areas and sprayed the inserts. This entire process took over 60 hours and pretty much wrecked my hands. Worth it though!

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i1238.photobucket.com-13750-1333044534.1.jpg)

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