Reply to "Refinishing Campi Wheels"

1. Clean the wheels
Thoroughly clean and degrease the wheels. Also, remove the DeTomaso center caps.

2. Anneal the wheels
Bake in an oven at 370 for 1 hour. Let cool overnight in the oven. This is best done with an oven outside. Acrid smoke will billow out of the oven, fill your house and set off the smoke alarms if you attempt this in the kitchen. And your house will stink for several weeks. I tried to bake just 1 wheel when my wife was gone for a weekend.

3. Strip/bead blast the wheels to remove all old paint.
Note: If the wheels still have the original factory paint and its in great shape, it's not necessary to remove it all.

4. Seal Prime
Prime/seal the wheels with Zinc Chromate to protect the magnesium against corrosion. I used the yellow spray cans of zinc chromate from Aircraft Spruce to prime my wheels:
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/ptizincchromateprimer.php

5. Paint the wheels
I used Eastwood Light Argent Silver wheel paint:
http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=96&itemType=PRODUCT
The color is almost spot on!

6. I used Eastwood Diamond Clear for the final topcoat:
http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/product/detailmain.j...t=411&iProductID=410
The wheels look great!

Overall, it was A LOT of work. A fellow club member reported that he dropped his wheels off at a local body shop and had them resprayed for $50 each (IIRC). I think I would go that route in the future given all the work it was to strip and paint the wheels.