sdhotwn

iTrader: (2)

This process takes about 2 hours spread over 2 days.

The cost is about 25 dollars, and will give you enough material to repair rims for more or less the rest of your life!

This can be done with the wheel on the car, you just have to be very thorough about covering the car from overspray, otherwise take the wheel off.

Work in a well ventilated area as the body putty and spray paints are quite noxious.

What you need:

120, 220, and 400 grit sandpaper
Qtips and or popsicle sticks
Light non-filled body putty/filler
Spot filling primer
Wheel paint or A69 Mitsubishi Touch up paint (satellite silver.. seems to match wheel color very well)
Wheel clearcoat (optional)
Isopropyl alcohol or paint thinner

The spray can paints create much better finishes than the little brush style paints. So ideally get all spray on paints.

sdhotwn

iTrader: (2)

The first step is to sand down any damage that you have. You need to make sure that all portions of the scuff are actually lower than the rest of the surrounding area. It is easiest to do this with a Dremel tool and a grinding stone.

Next sand the area with the 120 grit sandpaper, and overlap your scuffing into the undamaged areas by just a little bit.

the most important step is now to make sure that you get the sanded areas VERY clean. Use the alcohol or the paint thinner to make sure that you get every part the areas that you will be working on completely clean.

sdhotwn

iTrader: (2)

Next you need to "rebuild" the shape of the rim.

Take your body putty and put a small amount (equivalent to cracked egg) on tin foil or something else that will not be absorbent and that you can throw away.

Be careful with the putty as once it gets set on something, it becomes rather permanent.

The putty will harden very quickly and you will not be able to work with it after about 2 minutes.

DO NOT hurry though to try and beat the putty. You can always mix more and it is better to apply the putty evenly and nicely instead of hurrying.

I used Evercoat Lite Weight non-clog lightweight filler putty.

Make sure you mix the putty very thoroughly and then using a Q-tip or a popsicle stick to layer the putty onto the damaged areas.

Make sure you put more putty on than you need. You will be sanding down the putty so that you can recreate the shape of the rim. The putty sands/grinds pretty easily so you can be liberal, but do not go to excess.

Once the putty has been applied do not disturb it for a half an hour while it sets completely.

sdhotwn

iTrader: (2)

Once the putty has set you can begin sanding and grinding it down to match the shape of the rest of the rim. Take your time doing this as it is what will dictate your final rim appearance.

I started by grinding down the putty to more or less the correct shape with my Dremel tool. Then sanding to get a smooth even surface that matched my rim.

You will see some of your rim come through at times because the damage may not have been deeper than paint or so forth. In other words the shape of the puttied area compared to the rim is the most important, not whether or not you have putty everywhere and no aluminum showing through.

If you are unhappy with the shape you get, or mess up, just clean the putty with the alcohol and then reapply some more putty to give you more shape to work with again.

Once you have the desired shape you can begin moving on to paint.

sdhotwn

iTrader: (2)

Once again clean the surface to be prepared for painting. I recommend the alcohol here, or plain water instead of paint thinner, just to make sure you don't damage the integrity of the putty itself.

It is VERY important to mask off anything you don't want paint on. It's not worth the horror of overspray for being sloppy about masking off the wheel. If you are performing this repair with the rim on the car cover the entire side of the car and portions of the hood and trunk completely as the overspay may travel a considerable distance.

Ideally you want to have the edges of your masking to line up with different edges or lips on the rim. It is hard for the eye to distinquish paint changes or paint lines on edges or changes in surfaces. But we all know how easy it is to see a color change in a flat even area. So avoid having masking lines in the flat if at all possible.

With the area all masked off, put on a LIGHT coat of the filler primer over everything.

Let the coat dry for a while and then apply another LIGHT coat. Sand this down a little once it is dry.

At this point you can apply one more VERY light coat of primer, or move on to final paint.

sdhotwn

iTrader: (2)

Make sure that the primer has fully dried. This is very important because if you do not wait you will get cracks and lifting in your paint.

Make sure that you have lightly sanded and cleaned the primed area with 400 grit sandpaper and a damp paper towel. Let this dry off and then apply a nice even LIGHT coat of final paint.

Allow this to dry, sand it lightly with 400 grit and then apply your final LIGHT coat of final paint.

If you are applying a clearcoat, again sand with 400 grit, clean, and apply a light coat.

sdhotwn

iTrader: (2)

If you mess up at any point in time, just sand down to the primer or to the putty and then continue working back up through the steps until you have a finish and look you like!

Hope this is of use for you all.

A thread on Audi Forums with pictures and a similar explanation. It is what I learned from, but felt that a writeup with more clear direction in some areas was of benefit:
http://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/940057.phtml

HobieKopek

iTrader: (8)

Sorry, Steve. I'm not able to do all the stuff I'd like to on the forums as of this semester. Hope you won't hold it against me too much.

Discuss this thread here.