OUR CLASSICS
John’s rare 14-inch MGB-fit Revolution 4-spoke wheels were looking shabby and needed professional attention before he could consider getting new tyres
I noticed that GAF’s summer tyres really were past their best when I fitted my winter tyres (which I keep on similar but all-silver Revolution four-spoke alloy wheels) in late October. They had plenty of tread but were starting to crack and I realised that the oldest was 11 years old when I checked the dates; too old to be safe really. This made me think about the summer set of black Revolution four-spoke alloy wheels. I’ve managed to find two complete sets of five by buying them online when they turn up but the summer set had started to seriously corrode with the powder coat coming off in three-inch sheets.
A neighbour’s friend, Derrie Symes, works at Greens Total Car Centre in Stirchley, Birmingham, less than five miles from me so I popped in for a chat. He’s a real perfectionist and showed me a set of enormous wheels that he’d just finished for a Lamborghini Urus that looked fantastic. I was sold partly because of the quality of work but also because of Derrie’s infectious enthusiasm for classic cars.
Derrie suggested painting the spokes in body colour (in GAF’s case MG Anthracite/Charcoal used on early MGFs and other MG Rover cars of that era) and was convinced that he could get a super finish on them by diamond cutting the edge and polishing the lip, so we started by dipping them in methylene chloride (in a ventilated outdoor area for health and safety reasons), which stripped the paint off very quickly and is done. He then aqua-blasted each wheel very carefully at around 130psi with a suspension of tiny glass beads in water, taking a good 20 minutes on each wheel, leaving behind a clean silver but dull metal finish all ready for powder coating.
The next stage was an oven that cooks at 210 degrees centigrade for two to three hours, meaning the wheels are both totally dry and have finished ‘off-gassing ’. He then removed them from the oven and immediately applied the powder coating using a process called hot-flocking, so that it liquefies as it lands on the wheel and flows onto the surface. There are four stages to this process – from powder to gel, then flow as it melts, then cure. All done in a bay with a waterfall extraction system running behind the area to help remove dust and paint residue.
Once all five wheels were powder-coated black, Derrie put them back in the oven to harden them and then left them to cool slowly. The following day he placed them back in the oven at a lower temperature and spray-painted the fronts in GAF’s body colour (which he’d mixed on site using a modern water-based paint) once they we
