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MG MGA - Painting Chrome Plated Wire Wheels

Does anybody have experience with painting chrome plated wires? Obviously paint is not going to adhere to chrome plate very well, so what can be done? I have just spoken to an elctro-plater with a view to getting the chrome sripped off, but he tells me that the wheels would need to be taken apart and rebuilt with new spokes as the stripping agents would otherwise remain in all the nipple cavities and eat them away. Other than poor chrome, the wheels are in very good condition and have hardly been used. Help please!
Lindsay Sampford

Just clean them up and sell them, there are still enough owners out there (including Austin Healey and Triumph?) that like chrome wheels. The proceeds will then help with the cost of new painted wheels.
J H Cole

If the chrome were good enough to clean up I'd keep them! The chrome has badly rusted patches; Indian Dunlop Chrome!
Lindsay Sampford

You could try shot blasting and an etch primer. If the paint is strong enough it should hold, so long as there are no edges peeling before paint application. they may not quite be concours, but you should get a good enough result.
Neil McGurk

I was thinking along those sort of lines myself Neil, do you think sand blasting would do it? The chrome doesn't seem to be peeling anywhere, it's more a case of rust undermining it in small patches, once they are cleaned up an "Jenolited" those and the adjoining areas are sound but bare steel where the rusted patches were.
Lindsay Sampford

Linday. It is perfectly possible to remove plating using an abrasive medium. It will need to be some form of media such as aluminum oxide rather than walnut shells I have removed both chrome and nickel plating, on small parts, using glass beads with no problem. Discuss the problem with a professional media blastor and see what he might recommend.

Les
Les Bengtson

My thought was that even if all the plating is not removed it wouldn't really matter, so long as the surface was abraided.
Neil McGurk

I think an electroplating shop can remove the old chrome.
Del Rawlins

Yes, they can Del, but they say that corrosive residues would be left in all the spoke holes.
Lindsay Sampford

Lindsay, if you've got nothing to lose, I'd try and use some type of abrasive to roughen up the chrome a little. If you have a compressor you could use Aluminum oxide in one of those spot blasters or else try and roughen them a little any way you can. Use an etch primer first, Du Pont makes a very good one in a rattle can, which most paint supply stores should carry. I've used it and sticks like glue and impossible to remove from clean steel. Follow up with a good primer and then use Moss Motors silver paint which is a good match. If you have a compressor and spray equipment you can do a base coat/clear coat application over the primer.

Andy
Andy Preston

Thanks for that Andy, sounds like a good plan. Yes I have a compressor and was thinking about getting a shot blaster for the job. I've seen some advertised on eBay for about £20-£30, are they any good?
Lindsay Sampford

"Obviously paint is not going to adhere to chrome plate very well"

Not true; the problem with adhesion on chrome is that waxes/oils are embedded in the porous surface of the chrome.

If the wheels are CLEAN, the paint will stick.
All chrome Jaguar wire wheels were clearcoated over high polish, along with most or all of the chrome on those cars (XK-MKII etc)
That's why the chrome on even the most abandoned ones is frequently still good, if some ditz didn't remove the clearcoat with "chrome polish". The chrome is very often better on neglected cars than on those endlessly polished.

Don't waste your time trying to blast them, except to clean up rusty areas. It will take forever with any small blaster.
There is effectively no way you can blast ALL the plating, either to roughen or remove. The construction of the wheel means something is shielded from every angle. It's the same thing that makes them difficult to clean, and will result in the same peeling of paint starting from the places you missed.

But, cleaning can be done chemically by immersion.Either take them somewhere with a vapour degreasing setup, or boil them in washing soda (sodium carbonate)solution after pressure washing. Hot lye (sodium/potassium hydroxide)solution or soaking in ammonia solution will also usually remove all wax and greases. These are what used to be called "hot tanks", superb for the job, and getting hard to find nowadays, but DO NOT put aluminum bits in!
FRM
FR Millmore

Lindsay, following up on something that FRM said made me think of using a good acidic chrome wire wheel cleaner. This stuff is pretty "hot" and the manufacturer doesn't recommend leaving it on for more than 2 minutes. It works fantastic for cleaning up really dirty and grimey chrome wires. I get mine from British Wire Wheel in California but there should be something equivalent in England. If you have a compressor and spray gun and use a Base coat/clear you could try a silver base color by Du Pont F7999K . I've used it on painted wires and it looks great.

Good Luck

Andy
Andy Preston

I would expect the hot tank method to have the same sorts of issues with leaving corrosive residues in the spoke holes as having the plater remove it. What does it cost these days to have otherwise OK wire wheels disassembled, reassembled, and re-trued? Is is even worth rebuilding wheels that have to be taken apart?
Del Rawlins

The wheels on my car were all in pretty bad condition. After determining there was no one in my state that repaired wire wheels, I considered rebuilding them myself.

What I found was the cost of buying the spokes alone was more than the cost of a new wheel.

If you can find someone who will do the work for you, make sure you get a quote for new wheels to compare the cost. My fear is that disassembly, deplating, priming and painting are going to be far more expensive than just buying new wheels.
L Wheeler

This thread was discussed between 11/06/2009 and 14/06/2009

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