Heavy duty wheel detail

rottenII

rottenII

Member
When I ordered my car I spent the extra for the chrome wheel option. Imagine my disappointment when I got the car and found just the face was chrome and the whole inner barrel was a grey paint. Well, fast forward to a few weeks ago a gentleman on the corvette forum posted a thread showing that the wheels were actually all chromed and that GM had painted over the inner barrels. His thread showed how he stripped the paint and got the wheels looking as they should.
SO....yesterday mornings project involved some aircraft stripper. (a bit more aggressive than anything else in my detail arsenal :D) After stripping each wheel (second pic) they received a good polishing with Poorboys chrome polish and then were coated with DP Wheel Coat. I think they look a ton better than the way they came from the factory.


Pat
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Thanks everyone. It was raining by the time I finished yesterday so I'm looking forward to seeing them out in the sun.B)
 
Not to be Douggie Doubter, and maybe this is the "new" GM, but the "old" GM would never spend the money to add paint over plating, even on a Corvette. Why would they bother doing an extra step to paint over the chrome? Or were they actually figuring that it would improve the overall corrosion resistance on a part of the wheel that would not get as much cleaning as the front (in a non-Autopian world)?

I'm having trouble grasping why they would do that; I have GM high-polish wheels, which were an extra-cost option over the base silver, and they didn't even bother to clear the barrels when they did the rest of the wheel.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Not to be Douggie Doubter, and maybe this is the "new" GM, but the "old" GM would never spend the money to add paint over plating, even on a Corvette. Why would they bother doing an extra step to paint over the chrome? Or were they actually figuring that it would improve the overall corrosion resistance on a part of the wheel that would not get as much cleaning as the front (in a non-Autopian world)?

I'm having trouble grasping why they would do that; I have GM high-polish wheels, which were an extra-cost option over the base silver, and they didn't even bother to clear the barrels when they did the rest of the wheel.
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I'm guessing the same as you that the ave person never cleans the inner barrels on their wheels so the paint is just a protection layer. I know a friend of mine just picked up a '99 C5 with 40k in beautiful shape yet you can see the barrels have not been cleaned since it was new. They looked like they were painted black with the hardened grime and brake dust.
 
Yeah, I wonder if GM decided that covering the chrome plating on the inner surface would be far more durable in a non-Autopian world....
 
Mp0wer said:
Wow what a difference...looks awesome !!!

Did the aircraft stripper take it right off ?
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Thanks. It softened it enough that I could scrape/brush it off with a small brass bristled brush. Went over it twice end then hit the small spots there were left with a clean brush and some lacquer thinner.
 
If you think about it, chroming a wheel involves a few steps of dipping it in a couple of different things, so if this is the case with these wheels, it would have to be harder to just dip the wheel so far and stop each time, throughout the entire process, Im thinking.
Would have to be faster or whatever they may have justified it to just immerse the entire wheel through the several steps and be done with it..

Dan F
 
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