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Ben's turbine rim restoration chronicles...

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
So as most of you know, I've had a set of turbine rims I've been wanting to throw on the Bronco for a while. The bad part, the were painted black and I didn't have a new set of tires to throw on them. Well I got a set of tires, so I needed to clean up the rims. The rims aren't done yet, but cleaned enough to where I'm comfortable mounting them on the rig. I started by buying 2 cans of 'airplane stripper'. I sprayed the stripper on, the longer you let it sit, the easier the paint comes off. The can said 5-15 minutes...I sprayed all the rims at the same time, so some sat as long as 30 mins. As noted, the longer they sat, the easier the paint came off. I wasn't sure how the paint would lift off, so I bought some paint brushes to 'brush' off the lifted paint...that won't work, it'll just smear. Then I thought a garden hose might wash it off like rim cleaner...didn't work either. Then I saw my little bros 3000psi pressure washer...that worked...really well. All in all, took about 45 mins start to finish...super glad I found the pressure washer. And now for the pics:

I started with these:
DSC04110.jpg


I used this stuff...found at autozone:
image60.jpg

Use the gloves...I got some on my leg and its still burning an hour later after a shower.

I also used this:
image61.jpg


Here's my jig...hehe:
image62.jpg


And this was the end result:
image63.jpg


The remaining work can be done with tires on and on the vehicle. The plan is to polish the face if the fins and paint match everything else with the dark brown metallic of the Bronco.
 

DNFXDLI

The Token Canadian
Staff member
Cool, I've always liked that style...I'll bet they will look great painted like that.
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
^^^I'll probably just hit it with a portable sand blaster, paint and polish the flats of the fins.
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
And here they are actually on the Bronco...can't figure out how to get the doggon iphone pics to rotate the way I want...the look good in the gallery and my phone but post 90* off.

image82.jpg

image83.jpg
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
Duh...why else would anyone have the stuff.
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
^^^Thanks...I thought so too. Now all I need to do to that rig is booster/mc and reseal the intake and I think I'd be comfortable driving it cross country.
 

LEB Ben

Arrogant A-hole At-Large
34,919
1,124
outside your house
I was surprised at how easy the smooth part of the turbines buffed to a shine.
I wet sanded with some 2000 grit or something . Then polished with a wool wheel on a die grinder and a buffing stick. What I did came out nice but I sold the wheels.
 

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