Alloy Wheel Scraping Repair

[charlestek]

Bill,

I think ultimately Calendyr is probably right in his first thoughts that it is better to have a professional do this. I suspect that a dealer would probably not have a paint mix code, unless they suddenly decided to do wheel refurb as their main business, otherwise the mix code would have to come from Honda corporate. I agree with you totally that a body shop might have some ideas, in fact I should go personally to a few body shops and ask their opinion.

The company that makes the wheel repair system, HBC Systems probably knows the best. Their kit apparently has a handful of premixed color sprays for most alloy wheels:Alloy Wheel Repair Systems and Equipment

However, I thought that HBC sells a CNC lathe, but in fact it is a special turntable grinding system. So the wheel refurbish place I spoke with that uses a CNC machine must have come from another company.

 

[charlestek]

Re: Painted or Polished Wheels?

I looked at the photo you posted again and it looks like most of the damage is on what appears to be a polished outside edge. Was the painted area damaged as well? If the wheel is going to need to be machined anyway I would look to sand parallel to the flat edge until the damaged area is removed then gradually taper this out followed by compounding and polishing. You may need to do the entire "pie shaped" area along the top edge. This may result in a thicker looking edge profile where you've sanded deeper into the wheel. I really couldn't tell from the angle of your photo. Below is what my rim looked like after the repair. These were optional wheels for the Ram when I ordered it in 2015 and I took a chance at trying to repair the damage before looking into replacing the wheel because of the cost.

Vince,

If you double click the photo in google photos, you will get a little larger closeup. Then if you click on the photo and roll your mouse wheel (if you are on a PC, not a phone), you can zoom in to a lot greater detail.

If you look closely, it appears that the "paint" is the same on the spoke/vane of the wheel as it is an the very edge of the rim. The rim in fact is beveled in two places and not gradually tapered. I'm not sure there is actually pigmented paint, it looks more to me that both sections of the wheel are polished and that there may be some kind of satin clearcoat that is responsible for the color.

Not being a paint or body expert, I don't know for sure. Since the rim is beveled, one would probably want to grind it flat parallel to the vertical plane of the wheel.

I was thinking more of just scuffing it with a wire brush then using aluminum filler, but then you have the problem of the color of the filler not being the same as the alloy of the wheel.