When I first started thinking about this project, I started to try and narrow down what the final outcome might look like with different wheels. I’ve thought about many, and will probably change them many times more. I like the idea of refinished original wheels. There are so many great VW wheel designs form over the years these cars were produced. I managed to find a decent set of “p-slot” wheels. They weren’t perfect and needed a real clean up, fortunately they had already been polished once before so a lot of the grunt work had been done already.
I started by washing and scrubbing them with some good degreaser after which I sanded the unpolished parts with a few different grits of sandpaper suitable for paint prep. I then used a Dremel tool and cleaned out the hard to get spots. Once cleaned up i masked the face of the wheels and cut out the slots. Before paint i cleaned the wheels with acetone and then used a tack cloth to remove any remaining dust. I then sprayed a few coats of a primer filler combo which i sanded down to a smooth finish. Once drying was complete, I made sure the wheels were dust free again and continued with a few coats of a really dark gray that has some metallic flake in it, after that I sprayed a few on coats of clear. With the painting fished I began the polishing process. Wet sanding, with various ultra fine grits and then polishing with some metal polish until they become mirror like. For the center caps i found that a few other people have modified original VW chrome centers to fit into these wheels. I really liked this look so I’ve set about investigating how its done in order to do the same.
Robot Rabbit 