Can Magnesium/aluminum Allow Wheels be Powdercoated?

There's a Ferrari Tech Bulletin on the painting of our old castings jjay.......it includes the sealer you need for the porousity of the metal itself, then the layers of zinc chromate primer etc...

It's buried in one of our wheel threads posted by Tom S.

I printed it out and most likely have it with my car's books if a search doesn't turn it up..another person that knows the process is Napolis as his giant P4 wheels use the same stuff..he's driving in Sicily right now, but you'll see his wheels in his P3/4 thread.

I have some beautifully done wheels on one of my cars, going bad, LOL!.....so it's real important the first coats are correct, I am not that familiar with powdercoating maybe others have tried it?

 

One thing you might consider in powder coating rims, is that if you get a chip in them you have redo the whole rim, whereas painting them you can just touch them up.

 

Heat is an issue, and may affect the strength of the wheel.

 

Older wheels dont do well under the baking cycle for powdercoating, they gas out of the pores and produce blisters on the coating during the heating process. I have seen this with magnesium wheels I had done, they had to be recoated 2 and 3 times before the coating would stick. Standard basecoat -clearcoat paint process will work better with the correct primer for the type of metal wheel.

 

I had my original Chromodoro wheels on my 308/GT4 powder coated about 15 years ago. There are pros and cons.

They still look great and clean up very easily.
I have not seen the bubbling/outgassing problem described above
A ham-fisted tire changer chipped the edges, which I have to keep after with touch-up paint.
Standard clip-on balance weights don't seem to stay on - you have to use stick-ons.
A friend pointed out that if the wheel develops a crack it will be difficult to see (safety issue)

You must be sure to mask off the inside hub mating surface, and the bolt holes wherever they will contact the bolt head.

Overall - I'm glad I had it done

 

I’m not suggesting that the wheels can or should be powder coated, but the outgassing problem with castings can be solved by pre-heating the casting prior to the first coat of zinc primer.

Powder Coat can be touched up with paint, you must remove the wax surface coating which can form on some powders after 24 hrs.

 

Make that "heat is an issue, and it will absolutely affect the strength of the wheel".

bad idea.

 

Hi jjay911,

We were knockin' this around just the other day in the 206/246 section. (I'll repost the pics below.)

Go to: [/url]http://www.roadsters.com/gibbs/[/url] & check out the wheels (familiar?) that have been maintained with Gibbs Brand penetrant. I bought a can from a vendor on eBay & will try it out on some partly-polished 308 Campys. More to follow.

To answer your second question, see what you think about these folks: www.wheelconcepts.com/. They're in Newbury Park. They repaired/restored & painted Impactco's 16" rims & rechromed the lug bolts. Search for Michael's thread started 05-17-2006/09:15, entitled "Refinished wheels, lugs & badges."

Cheers,
Coop
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You're not going to be able to polish old Italian wheels (Campys) to look like that. Besides, you need to protect the inside of the rim and the where the bead of the tire meets the rim.
You can have mositure ruin them from the inside out. I use the Gibbs stuff for other things but I can't imagine how much work it must be to keep mag or aluminum wheels polished like that and sprayed with Gibbs.

BTW, most the 3 piece racing wheels come with forged aluminum centers that are powder coated. I wouldn't powder coat a 1 piece racing rim though. You want to see cracking early.

 

If you can take the opinion of a lowly ZR-1 Corvette owner, the place to send these is Ye Olde Wheel Shop

Ye Olde Wheel Shop
6363 Washington Blvd.
Elkridge, MD 21227
410-796-8400
800-526-8260

They specialize in Dymag and other magnesium wheels, I have a set of Dymags on my ZR-1 and they face the same issue. They will look brand new when done, and the finish will last.

There is also an environmentally friendly product called Prekote that can be used to seal magnesium and then they can be painted with an Expoxy primer to seal and then painted. This product is used by the military and aircraft industry to seal magnesium and prevent corrosion.

LGAFF1