1970 Wheel refinishing

[Greg H.]

Hi all,
I recently posted about getting my Ralley wheels properly balanced. Now I've got to figure out the best way to restore them. The spare rim was original paint, but the other four had been repainted silver. One of the four was bent, so now the spare rim is going into service. I have a good comparisson to the silver vs. green tinted original paint color. Again, one wheel is original and not in too bad shape so if I could keep it that way and just refresh the other three I may help preserve the color reference. Should I bother? Or should I just find some paint as close as possible and paint all five?

Regardless, I have read the posts on where to get the original match and it sounds like there is no consensus on where to get the paint. Please post the latest success stories for matching this color in spray cans as well as any advice on what to do with the one original. Maybe I should just spray the part that shows and leave under the trim alone?

Greg

[Dick W.]

Re: 1970 Wheel refinishing

Greg, if you have the one for reference, take it to your local paint jobber and have them scan the color and then mix you enough to refinish the wheels. Recently I took a piece of a '65 dash and had it scanned. The paint they mixed for me was a perfect match including the proper amount of gloss (or lack of)

[Jack H.]

Re: 1970 Wheel refinishing

Wheels CAN be 'trued'... The last time I did this it ran in the $100-150/wheel range for the service.

The technique is rather straight forward. The wheel is mounted on a stub axle fixture so that it can be rotated. Dial calipers measure radial and axial concentricity. The 'high' spots causing the wheel to be out-of-round are marked and the wheel is moved off the measuring fixture, laid on back stop surface and a 'precision' hammer is selected to WACK the wheel with.

The proceedure repeats until the wheel is re-formed to fall within factory original specs for concentricity. When I watched the process (dull, boring, noisy and tedious), it took around three hours per wheel...