Polished rim regrets?

It's time for a tire change and I need to do something with the look of my rims. Just wondered if striping and polishing is a bad idea as far as maintaining them. Anyone wish that they had painted or powdercoated instead? This would probably be easier but I have heard that the high temperature of the power coat is bad for cast alloys, any truth?

 

Most motorcycles including yours come with powdercoated wheels. The finish is much more durable than paint. Never heard of the powdercoating process when done properly damaging cast wheels. Recently had the wheels on my Gen 6 powdercoated. Results are excellent. If you do powdercoat make sure you check with the shop about the front wheel bearings. The front wheel bearings will need to be removed.

 

I polished mine, It's A LOT of work! Once you strip the powder coat off you have to sand the machining grooves out, polish, and then re-paint the part that you don't polish. As far as maintaining them, since I painted the centers of mine black it shows dirt after every ride so frequent washing is required to keep them looking nice. I pull the rims off the bike about once a year and re-polish, not that big of a deal after the first polish. Oh, and don't let road salt sit on the bare rim, it will corrode the aluminum. This is the second bike I polished the rims on because even though it's a lot of work I think it's worth it!

 

MrSleep i think your bike looks awesome. Especially the rear rim.

RDMCD if you think polishing is to much work, check out these sample pics. The wheels were done at Morini Performance Coatings, the shop that did my wheels. Just to give you an idea of what an experienced shop can do.



They also have a faq page with lots of good info. link: Morini Performance Coatings

 

Hey Sleep

Just a suggestion for you. When I polished the peg brackets on my last VFR (a 97 VFR) I too had the problem with what to do with the bare aluminum since I did not want to remove the brackets and everything once a year. I found and used a product called Zoop Seal Aluminum Sealer and it kept the aluminum shiny for 4 years or more (I had sold the bike at this point) without ever having to be polished again. I did a web search for Zoop Seal and it turns out they went out of business but the product is now sold under the name ShineSeal. Here is a link to their website.

ShineSeal.com ::: Protect Your Products :::

The Zoop Seal took a bit of time to install but the effort was well worth it. I also used the product on the polished aluminum wheels of a friends 99 Hayabusa and he has not polished them again to this day (about 6 years now) and they are still as shiny as when we first applied the product. Might be worth a look.

 

I had polished rims on my last bike. They looked great when they were clean...but as soon as you go for a ride they'll look filthy. IMO, don't bother unless you really enjoy cleaning your rims regularly.

If you do decide to polish them, be sure to have them sprayed with a clear coat afterwards. Personally, I'd stick with powdercoating.

 

Thanks Zoom-Zoom! I've been looking for something that will keep the rims polished.
And thanks for the compliment Arnzinator!

 

Zoop Seal is no longer extant. I think Shine Seal is made by the same guy, hence the link.

 

"If you do powdercoat make sure you check with the shop about the front wheel bearings. The front wheel bearings will need to be removed."
Make sure you plug up the holes though, the guys that did my wheel coated the WHOLE thing, it was a real bitch cleaning out where the bearings go. As regards polishing, I did my GS500 rims and put a clear coat on the shiny bit, so far it's held up ok.

 

Clear powdercoating is an option too. Consider that alumimum alloys outgas and will tend to push off clearcoats.

Powdercoating is best done IMO by the commerical outfits rather than botiques. Another option if a color change is wanted, is paint. "Modern" automotive finishes are remarkably tough and with careful masking, wheels can be painted without even removing the tires. These paints flash off quickly and several coats can be applied in a day. Flowed on, no clearcoat is even necessary unless ya have to have one because the guy with the Harley down the street had his done like that.

 

I'd say that if your bike lives in a garage, is not your daily driver, and you have plenty of spare time do it. But, if it's going to see rain, and you don't feel like polishing it once a week, leave it alone. I did my wheels and frame and it gets old. It looks great when you keep up with it, but it's pretty annoying.

 

And that's one of the reasons I wanted a 2009 VFR...that black frame never needs touching!

 

Oh yeah. I'd never have to wash that bike.

 

The showing part of the "silver" frames can be painted. I did the mach 1 91. The frame is factory coated with a proprietary coating. I scuffed it with 0000 steel wool, and with a shitload of careful masking and after pulling all the rest of the parts to be painted applied some Martin-Senour black automotive with a smidgen of flatning agent added to knock down the gloss. The paint was applied with a very small HVLP touchup gun.

Masking the area took much more time than the actual painting. Lots of tricks in masking including choosing the best tape or tapes, having a masking machine aka an apron taper and using Visqueen and aluminum foil where needed. No real rules and even having a pile of cardboard boxes all cut to fit is fair game.

Another trick when painting a faired bike is to shoot a couple of coats of a flat or flattened black on the inside of the fairing parts. Mask off or just sand off the overspray. Any ports or holes in the fairing can be masked once again from the inside before application of the "exterior" paint.

Best deal going is to spring for a book on how-to.. Better than Tylenol afterward.

 

Hey Mello

Yes, when I tried to look up Zoop Seal I discovered that they are no longer in business, but the new company is apparently called Shine Seal. I still have some of the Zoop Seal but since it is about 7 years old now I'm not sure if it is any good any more. If anyone does give the Shine Seal a try I would be interested to know how well it works. The thought of polishing the wheels on my new(er) VFR has crossed my mind more than once and I was thinking of polishing up the footrest brackets as well, just like the last bike.

 

I'm thinking I'm gonna buy an older VFR, polish up what I can, chrome the rest and just keep it in the garage. Beats the shit out of all that riding for an hour and cleaning for two. I leave that to the harleydoods.

 

my rims look like crap. I bought the bike used. Previous owner i think used some weird cleaning products on them. The finish looks all spotty. I'm thinking about getting them powder coated. Depends on the cost. I've found some places locally that do it fairly cheap. But i don't have the expertise or tools to take the wheels off myself and remove the rubber. Would depend on what the local shop would charge me for that.

 

Hey Drude

Removing the wheels on your bike is really not too hard at all. The rear wheel is just as easy as taking a rim off your car, just place the bike on the center stand, undo the 4 lug nuts and remove the wheel. I have found it helps to place one foot on the rear brake while loosening the lug nuts (this is a bit awkward but it can be done) or ask a friend to apply the rear brake for you. The front wheel is a bit more complicated to remove but again not really hard. Here is a link to the Specifications section of this site where you can download a Factory Honda Service Manual for your bike and it can walk you through the removal of the front wheel.

http://vfrworld.com/forums/specifications/3161-downloadable-parts-catalogs-service-manuals.html

The file is large and may take a while to do, but the manual is extremely useful, especially if you are not necessarily mechanically inclined. Having a friend to help with removing the front wheel is a good idea. Whenever I have removed the front wheel on my bike I usually get my wife to gently push down on the rear of the seat until the front wheel is just off the ground and hold it there while I put the axle bolt back in through the fork tubes, and then gently set the front end back down with an axle stand positioned under each fork tube (I have also used a large concrete block with a piece of 2x4 across the top to prevent damaging the fork tubes.

If you can remove the wheels on your own then you should be able to greatly reduce the cost of getting them powder coated. Once the wheels are off the bike, you can take the wheels to a motorcycle repair shop to get the tires removed and get the front wheel bearings and rotors removed as this will need to be done to get the front rim powder coated. I also had the front wheel bearing replaced when I had my rims powder coated for the sake of peace of mind and cost just under $100 for the bearings and new dust seals to be installed. As I recall, the cost for the shop to remove and re-install the wheels, and replace the wheel bearings was around $300. The shop (since it was a smaller location) said that since the bike would be taking up space in the shop, and not being movable without wheels, there would be a fee charged per day while they were storing the bike during the time the wheels were out for powder coating. The powder coating took three days and the shop would have charged me $25/day storage. As you can see, if you can do the wheel removal yourself, you can potentially save a fair bit of money. Not to mention there is always the risk of the bike being scratched while sitting at a shop (this has happened to me once before and it was really hard to prove that they damaged the bike while in their possession since with a used bike, it is your word against theirs).

Are your rims currently painted or polished? If they are polished aluminum then using harsh chemicals (such as degreaser or strong cleaners) can cause blemishes to the bare aluminum. If they are polished then maybe try using some "Autosol" aluminum polish to remove the staining marks and shine up the wheels. If they are painted and have some whitish marks on them, perhaps they have some hard water spotting on them. You could try using some CLR to remove the hard water staining.

Hope this helps