The BBS Style 5s on my 840 sport aren't in the best of shape as they're suffering from lacquer peel, corrosion and kerb rash. Initially I was planning on buying another set of wheels to run whilst I refurb the splitties but if I had another set on the car laziness could get the better of me and they could well be shelved onto the long term 'to-do' list. I didn't want a lacquered finish on the dishes so I bought a set of polishing wheels and goblets and decided that I'd do them one by one and see how far I'd get on a weekend.
I almost wish I hadn't started this project by Saturday afternoon but once you've started...
Saturday 28th June - Start time 11:30am
I decided to begin with the worst one of the four (NSR) thinking that no matter how lame my attempt it couldn't possibly look any worse. As you can see it's in a pretty bad state with some deep gouges amongst the kerb rash.
There are 34 bolts in each rim. Hard work and killer on the joints but luckily none of them were seized and all the nuts came off with a little persuasion.
Once the nuts were all undone I expected the bolts to come straight out but they all needed a bash with a mallet as they were all seated quite tight.
All present and accounted for.
Having never split wheels before I wasted a lot of time being over cautious and light handed in my technique. After jumping up and down on the wheel centre for 5 minutes I found a 3 ft long piece of 2 x2 and wrapped one end of it with a towel, positioned it on the edge of the wheel centre and attacked the other end with the mallet. Winner.
I opted to clean the bolts with a wire brush to strip off old lacquer, Hammerite, rust and whatever else was caked on them. 34 bolts later the RSI had kicked in.
The wheel centres are all in good shape so no work required on that front. I decided to mask off the tyre as I didn't fancy getting paint stripper on the rubber but first I had to resort to barbecue cleaner to get rid of all the tyre shine in order for the tape to adhere.
Opted for Nitromors as weapon of choice to attack the lacquer. Dabbed a liberal amount on all the lacquered areas and left for about 10 minutes whilst I cracked on with the wire brushing of bolts.
It will need attacking again with the paint stripper and this time I applied it with more force and a jabbing action which released the majority of the clear coat. Repeat process until happy.
Once all the bolts were cleaned up I found a cardboard box and drilled a succession of 7mm holes for the bolts to sit in. This would enable me to get decent coverage on the bolt heads with the Hammerite smooth.
Then the wet sanding begins, joy of joys. The heavy kerbing required drastic measures to smooth out and I struggled to make any progress with my assortment of wet & dry paper. I took a small section of 40 grit (would recommend using something slightly less abrasive!!!) and worked away at the gouges then switched to various grades of finer paper to achieve an acceptable finish.
It took ages to get rid of the self inflicted sanding marks from my overzealous coarse grain and I should have put more elbow into it but I was starting ache and I'd already been at it for over 6 hours so I moved onto the polishing wheel and compound.
Paying particular attention to the bolt line as it will be easy to come back to the dish at a later date. A few coats of wax later...
Then it was time to reacquainted with the Crescent wrench as reassembly begins. I was completely knackered by this point and wasn't even that happy with the finish that had been achieved but at least it was coming together.
And here it is back on the car.
Finish time 8:15pm
Despite suffering from what felt like sun stroke I dragged myself over to my parents house on Sunday to start on the OSR wheel and having started at 12 noon I managed to wrap up just before 5pm. This rim wasn't in as bad a state but having done it once already the method was fresh in my head and everything felt more efficient. 2 down, 2 to go. 
