[Bentwheelbob]

Ok, how cool is this? Pontiac honeycombs in the back of the Green Truck headed for the tire guy. So I hauled the honeycombs to the guy and got them broken down this morning. Off the books - $20 tip with no waiting. Thanks to Greg's tip below, the project is moving along quickly.

Originally Posted by 165th

Say Bob, instead of sanding, you may also consider just hitting them with a Harbor Freight glass bead blast. This will keep profile even, take the shine away and prep for another light coat over. I'm visualizing sanding will smooth things too much and just hit the high spots of the already laid profile.

I've completed that process once before with great success.

Good luck with the wheels and best to MPD.

I followed his suggestion and bead blasted the wheel faces to clean them up, get rid of the gloss and provide a nice surface for adhesion. I ran the blast cabinet at 35psi and that was just about right. It did what I wanted it to do, but did not try to lift any of the finish. The back and inner portions of the wheels were in great shape, so I cleaned them with degreaser and a green scotchbrite. The back and inner wheel areas have been painted this evening. I cranked up the heat in the paint booth and hope they will be dry enough in the morning to start on the face area. Here are a few pictures.

Greg - thanks for the great suggestion.

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Bentwheelbob

The dates should be around the interior of the rim not on the face. They are stamped in rather large fonts with a two letter code, where it was made and a date I think? I think you can actually see a portion of one of them on the rim in the lower left of this photo. Looks like a 12?

Here's a photo of what I mean:

[Bentwheelbob]

OK, it must be a sign of the apocalypse when two of the PY masters give differing information. Well, maybe not.....

Here's a couple of examples of what I have. How do you interpret the stampings?

[njsteve]

I know what the MADE IN USA and the 15x7 mean. :-)

But as for the other codes, I will defer to an expert for those.

(BTW, Aren't you going to remove the stick on weights?)

[Bentwheelbob]

Originally Posted by njsteve

I know what the MADE IN USA and the 15x7 mean. :-)

But as for the other codes, I will defer to an expert for those.

(BTW, Aren't you going to remove the stick on weights?)

I may have stepped in it here. I assumed the stick on weights were from the rims themselves being balanced since there were also standard wheels weights around the rim perimeter. Not the case? I knew this was going along too well.

HFR - thanks. Sounds like a bunch of orphans.

[njsteve]

The stick ons were used because they allowed for a more accurate balance. Because of the heaviness and uneven loading of that urethane face, these wheels are very hard to balance to our pickiness level. And I also wanted to keep the weights off the face side of the wheel for aesthetic reasons.

I checked the outer codes on the honeycombs that came with the 72 when I bought it and they are an orphan later set, as well. As I recall i went through a dozen wheels before I found a nice balance-able set that I used for the radials that are on your car now. The next best set were used for the bias ply set that went with the T/A and the really wobbly ones were used for trunk mounted spare tires.