Mag wheel refurbish

willis

xsive compulsive disorder
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I thought i’d share my trial and tribulations ive experienced during my wheel rebuilding process for the mags off my long term tracker project. The bike is a ‘78 special with disc mags front and rear. I had already painted and put new bearing in the original mags last year but am not happy with my paint job. I should have taken more time taping them up before painting. Here’s an older picture for reference.
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For round 2 I have secured a couple pairs of 19” front mags as well as purchasing an Omar’s conversion kit. I bought 2 pairs because quite frankly the price was right. I figured I would try drilling 1 set and leave the other with just fresh paint. After I got them home and inspected closer, I found one of the wheels is off a 750. It will still work though as long as I keep it on front.
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The drilled mags did not work out as well as I had hoped, so I will stay focused on the pair to be repainted. First up was removing the old bearings. One wheel was pretty decent but the 750 wheel was pretty grungy. To get the bearing out I had to knock the inner spacer to the side. Then I used a large screwdriver and a long 3/8 ratchet extension to pound them out. Saving the best spacer for later as I will reuse it on the front 750 wheel.
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Last year when I repainted the mags, I only taped off the outer lip of the rims and painted everything else black. This time round, I decided to tape off the edges and and do a factory style paint job, but with a different color. I started off sanding and polishing the parts I wasn’t painting. I’m not going for a high polish chrome finish here, but more than a raw aluminum look. Once my fingers heeled from polishing (sorry, no pictures here) I moved on to taping. This was quite a tedious task. I armed myself with a fresh roll of masking tape and an exacto knife. The outer lip wasn’t too bad but I found that cutting my tape in half allowed me to follow the curve on the rim easier. Taping and cutting the spoke edges was the tedious part. Once I was done I gave the wheels a good wipe down with mineral spirits to remove any oil I may have left behind. I failed to mention earlier that I de-greased and washed thoroughly after the polishing.
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Now for the fun part, paint. I wanted to paint the wheels in a natural cast aluminum finish. In the past I have had good results using Rustoleum professional enamel spray paint, but when I went to Lowes to buy the paint, I learned they recently discontinued carrying the brand. I opted for a comparable Krylon version instead and hoped for the best. At home I set up my spray station in the driveway. It consisted of 2 jack stands from Harbor Freight and an old broken shovel handle.
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The paint sprayed and laid down nice, but it was looking much more glossy than I was shooting for. Since I hadn’t used the product before I decided to finish painting and hope that it would dry with a more flat/satin finish.
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As grandpa used to say “wish in one hand and shit in the other, tell me which one fills up first”. This finish turned out to be more of a semi-chrome finish. I was NOT Happy with the finished results. Now the hard part was getting all this paint off and starting over at square 1. This took way longer than it should have. What a mess. At least I only painted one wheel though !!!
 
Ok, fast forward some and the wheel is all clean again and re-taped for a second time. I know now I want to stick with the Rustoleum brand, so I run to Menards and find they carry it. Not only do they carry it, but the offer so many more color choices in the professional enamel line that I like so much. This time I grabbed a couple different cans and decide to do a comparison test. Once home I grab an old plastic license plate as my test sheet. I tested the cast aluminum color, cast machine grey, and a stainless steel color. I’ve decided the stainless steel has a nice satin finish as well as a little splash of a golden bronze color. Time to spray.
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This paint lays down very nice and with good coverage. It almost appears to have a powder substance in it which felt strange but cured up nicely. My paint jig allowed me to rotate and get all the nooks and crannies very well. I am very pleased with these results. Once I let them cure for a couple weeks, I installed the new bearing an seals. I also finished removing the old tires.
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I started installing the Omar’s kit as well. New bearings and seals are in. I just need to remove my drilled rotors from my current mags, paint them to match the mags and mount some tires and they will be done. I will follow up with finished pics once I can save some money for the tires. For now here is how they sit.
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Thanks for watching.
 
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Thought I’d add a little follow up here. I painted the rotors to match some time ago but finally scraped together some money for a new set of tires too. The tires are Duro hf308 4.0-19. Got them delivered to me at a pretty decent price from Midwest Traction. This was my first attemt at mounting tires on my own. Took about an hour to do both. It wasn’t too bad except getting the tube valve through the rim. Oh yea, and I pinched the rear tube in the process so I get to do it all over again :doh:. Glad I didn’t put the DynaBeads in yet!!! All in all I’m really happy the way the wheels turned out.

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Nice! If I was ever to get another XS (unlikely...) I'd definitely go the tracker route. I think I'd try just sand-blasting the mags for starters.
 
Hey willis. Great choice on the paint and the tires are perfect! Unless you had a fixture (metal template) drilling mags is not as easy as it sounds. What is the front rotor? Great Job.:thumbsup:
 
I tried my hand at making a metal template for drilling the other set of mags but some of the holes still did not get perfectly centered. I’ve still got that set hanging around the shop. They don’t look bad, but I decided against using those.

The front rotor is an EBC unit i believe. I bought it from Gggary a while back. It’s considerably lighter than stock. Rear is just a stock drilled unit.
 
Those wheels look great in that color. I painted mine black but now I'm rethinking that decision...
 
Hell yeah! I've been pretty vocal about not being a fan of mag wheels. I think they're ugly. BUT they make the most sense. Tubeless, no spokes to replace/adjust, aluminum... Good to see some of my old wheels go to a good home. Good job dressing them up!
 
This was my first attempt to mount my own tires. While it wasn’t tremendously difficult, I did learn from a few of my mistakes. Having the set of 3 tire spoons really helped. I ended up pinching one of my tubes that resulted in the job having to be done twice. Also a note for other first timers ... the tubes come with two nuts on the valve stem. One of those stays inside the rim to hold the little washer in place and the other goes outside. Ask me how I know this and I will tell you how I like to learn lessons the hard way. At least now I have some experience for the next time.
 
I think I can safely say that most of us have learned at least some of our lessons the hard way - one of the great things about this forum is the hope that the sharing we see here every day helps to minimize it!
 
Willis - how did you do your rotor cover? Cut out the "half moons" and bond in some perforated stock after shaping it a bit? It looks really trick!
 
If you mean my avatar then you are exactly correct. I cut out the half moons with a 4” grinder. Then I formed the perforated sheet with a ball peen hammer to fit the half noon forms and epoxied it in.

If you look closely at my side covers they have the same perforated sheet welded in to match. They are definitely home made and a little rough, but I thought the idea was cool
 
If you mean my avatar then you are exactly correct. I cut out the half moons with a 4” grinder. Then I formed the perforated sheet with a ball peen hammer to fit the half noon forms and epoxied it in.

If you look closely at my side covers they have the same perforated sheet welded in to match. They are definitely home made and a little rough, but I thought the idea was cool
What I thought - just too many holes in too regular a pattern to be drilled - thanx!
 
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