My 2006 A4/ BBS LM refinish project

[pDubs]

Figured I'd finally make an introduction thread. I bought my A4 a little over a year ago now and sold my 2005 Subaru WRX for it. Here's the suby












I bought the WRX completely stock in 2006 and over the years it went through several stages. It had bigger turbo, full catless exhaust, injectors, fuel pump, bunch of brake and suspension upgrades. It made about 300 whp and about 300 wtq.

Now on to the Audi.

So far it has Koni coilovers, Revo stage 1, Paint matched reflectors, Plate filler, Yellow fogs, LED license plate bulbs, trunk spoiler, Brembo rotors and Hawk HPS pads, rolled and slightly pulled fenders. Along with the 18x8.5 +15 (reverse mounted) BBS LMs with 215/40/18 Hankook ventus v12s that I just recently finished and mounted up.

I bought the wheels used and they weren't in the best shape.







I took them apart and polished the lips. First I chemically stripped them then hand polished each one. Each lip took about 6 hours from start to finish.





lips polished


Then it was time to start on the faces. I decided to do a thorough sandblast and clear coat them. I thought this would be a neat finish and be pretty unique. One of my good friends has his own sandblast cabinet, power coat gun/oven, compressor, etc. so I did them over at his place. Each face took around 4 hours of thorough sandblasting to completely strip everything evenly. It was a huge PITA. We then powder coated them with 40% clear.





Here's one sandblasted without clear coat vs one that was cleared and cured. The clear definitely darkened them up a bit.




All 4 done.



Closeup of the finish



Cleaned up all 80 bolts




Started putting them back together.





Had my friend mount and balance the tires.








Now all done and mounted up






















Lots of pics I know. haha. Thanks for looking. Next step is exhaust and stage 2!

[Brimmy]

Mmmm... Love that shape.
Great work on the wheels.

[pDubs]

Thanks!

[pDubs]

Also does anyone know when the store here will open back up. I've been trying to get a windshield banner for the past couple months and it's still not open.

[kittenpuncher]

Wow good write up on the wheel refinish. Keep it up.

[CubbyChowder]

Looks really good!

[pDubs]

Thanks everybody. For those wondering here's how I went about polishing the lips.

I used aircraft stripper (in a spray can) and taped off everything that I didn't want stripped/polished. I sprayed the lips evenly with it and it immediately started bubbling (the clear coat). Let it sit for 20 minutes and then hosed it off real well. I did that twice.



I then began wet sanding and used a spray bottle which was really convenient to continuously spray the lips down and a bucket of water to keep the sandpaper in and dunk in. I have a friend who also has a set of LMs for his corvette so we each did our own wheels together. We each did one every Saturday 4 weekends in a row. haha.



pruned hands






The process was 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2,000 all wetsanding. 400, 600, 800 probably each took an hour and then the steps went quicker. After 2,000 is done they look awesome and polished then you hit them with some mother's aluminum polish and put a huge smile on your face. Here's a pic where I hit a section with the mother's polish compared to the 2,000 grit.



You only need to use the aircraft stripper if the lips have clearcoat on them. You can have the lips re cleared after polishing, preferably powder coat cleared because regular clear probably won't hold. Only thing is clearing them will take away a little bit of the shine. I've decided to keep them raw polished like CCWs, Rotiforms, etc come and I'll just go over them with a 2,000 wetsand and mother's polish again probably when I mount the stock wheels for winter every year. As long as you keep up with cleaning them and taking care of them the raw aluminum won't oxidize.

[pDubs]

The process on the faces was absolute hell. I'd recommend to not do a thorough sandblast then clear coat. Getting it completely stripped evenly was a very long process for each one and with all the spokes it was difficult to do. You could definitely just do a quick sandblast then powder coat a color such as silver and gray to get a close enough outcome.

[pDubs]

Anyone wanna buy em? Audi is gone.

[Stancyeze]

Can the person who powdered your faces do some more? I have 4 Futura faces that need power..

[pDubs]

^Hey I know I'm way late but do you still need anything powder coated?

Also these wheels are up for sale in the classified section if anyone is interested.