# BBS LM - no machines, DIY refinish



## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

Decided to wait until the final product before making a thread but here it goes! 

At EuroTripper 3 in February 2015 I picked up a set of BBS LM’s from my buddy Bryan (Carbon13GTI). He had plans to do a full polish on the wheels but sold them to me before he was able to so I figured I’d make that my project for the next year. My over all goal was to have the wheels done by the time EuroTripper 4 was rolling around so I managed to finish a few months early! I originally wrote this up in November 2015 but didn't want to post anything online until EuroTripper 4 passed this past weekend.

Here are photos when the wheels were on his GTI. You can see some damage to the face of the wheel in the close up shot.



















Did everything by hand, I don’t have any specialty tools and don’t have the funds to ship the wheels out to be professionally refinished so quite a few packs of sandpaper, and many hours, the wheels are finished. These are the first set of wheels I’ve refinished, and my first set of multi piece wheels. 

Specs are 17x8/9 ET20 (reverse mounted faces) 5x114.3 with wobble bolts. 

The day I got the wheels home I started splitting them apart. Within 20 days I had the first face polished up, however once I stood back and took pictures of it, I was able to tell there were still some very deep scratch marks from sanding so I had to go back and resand that one. I started from 220 and went up to 2000. 














































The wheels have had at least two previous owners from my knowledge so they aren’t perfect to start with. Sanding down through the pitted texture of the BBS original grey and the machined markings on the lips look some time. There were also some dings on the faces from them being bolted to cars which I had to file down and then smooth out. 





































Cleaned up all the bolts since I have to reuse them. Wire brush to remove the old locktite and diet coke bath to break down any other gunk. I also polished up the center caps to get a consistent shine across them. 

Doing the sanding by hand made getting into the windows a little challenging so I opted to paint the insides black. I haven’t seen this done with polished faces on LM’s so I thought I’d give it a shot. I did this with black plastidip, and since having them finished and having to go back and re-polish the faces, I might eventually use actual wheel paint or find someone to power them.



















Pre camber fitment lol










Here are some shots when I was contemplating the rear fitment. More poke is with the faces reverse mounted. Ultimately I went with that option because I wanted the deeper lip, and sanding down the top of the lip was much easier than sanding the top edge of the face.



















The only thing left to do now is buy valve stem caps because one was missing when I bought the wheels. Over all though I am extremely happy with how this project turned out!

Now for the finished photos.. :laugh: For polish I only used what was readily available at walmart—Mother's Polish. I would like to invest in some better metal polishes, heard good things about Adams, but I would love to get recommendations here!

20160106_9655_BBSLM by Kyle Anderson, on Flickr

20160106_9657_BBSLM by Kyle Anderson, on Flickr

20160106_9664_BBSLM by Kyle Anderson, on Flickr

20160106_9665_BBSLM by Kyle Anderson, on Flickr

And here are two shots from EuroTripper 4, shots from photographer Donato Dell'Api, follow him on instagram @donatodellapi; http://donatodellapi.com



















Any comments or feedback is welcomed! I had a great time doing this project.


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## younggunz88 (Dec 11, 2012)

Awesome job. I got a few questions for you because I need to fix the lip on my wheels. Unfortunately, I used the wrong wheel cleaner on my rims and the clear coat started peeling off. 

1. From the looks of it, you sanded the whole rim, including the lips, with 200 grit all the way to 2000. How did you go about that? What increments exactly?

2. After completely sanding down the lips, did you polish and then respray with a clear coat?

3. Do you think I would be able to do this over a long weekend (Saturday-Monday)?

I appreciate any advice you can give me. Ive been pretty bummed out that this happened to my rims and I am sure i can do this myself.


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

younggunz88 said:


> Awesome job. I got a few questions for you because I need to fix the lip on my wheels. Unfortunately, I used the wrong wheel cleaner on my rims and the clear coat started peeling off.
> 
> 1. From the looks of it, you sanded the whole rim, including the lips, with 200 grit all the way to 2000. How did you go about that? What increments exactly?
> 
> ...



1. I did 220, 400, 800 Dry, then 1000, 1500, and 2000 wet.

2. No clear, just polished.

3. Realistically since you're just removing clear coat and polishing them back out you probably could. I would start with a paint stripper. On the lips I did use aircraft paint stripper to get most of the clear coat off before sanding. You could also probably skip straight to 1000 unless you have damage to the lips. The lips were the fastest part of this project. I was able to do a single lip in the matter of a day.

Although I don't find myself qualified to give you advice, I hope what I said helps.


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## smashedVr6 (Sep 29, 2002)

Great job on those. Nice to see what some hard work can do


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## 206vw (Sep 11, 2003)

Looks great!


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

smashedVr6 said:


> Great job on those. Nice to see what some hard work can do





206vw said:


> Looks great!


Thank you both!


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## younggunz88 (Dec 11, 2012)

Thanks for your advice. I followed your instructions and I was able to fix the lip on my rims. Im extremely happy and surprised at how easy (a lot of time though) it was. I noticed youre in Fl. Whereabouts?


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

younggunz88 said:


> Thanks for your advice. I followed your instructions and I was able to fix the lip on my rims. Im extremely happy and surprised at how easy (a lot of time though) it was. I noticed youre in Fl. Whereabouts?


Awesome! I'm glad it worked for you!  I'm in Broward. Weston/Davie area.


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

These look awesome. I added you to The Official Wheel Build Almanac & Reference Thread.

Solid work. :beer:


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

DUTCHswift said:


> These look awesome. I added you to The Official Wheel Build Almanac & Reference Thread.
> 
> Solid work. :beer:


Thank you!

Anyone have any suggestions on decent attachments to a cordless drill I could use for polishing? Since I live in south florida we get a **** ton of rain and it's always random. The water spots from the rain mixed with brake dust are killing me when trying to polish them out by hand.


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

spiker369 said:


> Thank you!
> 
> Anyone have any suggestions on decent attachments to a cordless drill I could use for polishing? Since I live in south florida we get a **** ton of rain and it's always random. The water spots from the rain mixed with brake dust are killing me when trying to polish them out by hand.


Coat the lips in car wax and buff them down after every time you polish them. That should allow you 4-5 complete wipe downs with a jeweler's rouge for brake dust/water spots before you'll need to repolish. That's what I do all season.


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

Anyone want to buy these?


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

Took apart one of the wheels again and started stripping the loctite out of the bolts. Going to try a little something..


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## pootey (Nov 12, 2006)

During the sanding process , did you use a machine or did it all by hand


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

pootey said:


> During the sanding process , did you use a machine or did it all by hand


Hand done.


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

So today in the process of going to put one of the wheels I've been working on (yes I'm screwing around with a new finish already) onto the car to see how it looks, I managed to drop it on the lip and it rolled so there is 'curb rash' along the entire outer portion of the lip. Looks like I'll have more one on one time with this lip and some wet/dry sandpaper.. :sigh: It also managed to crush my right big toe so it was a double hitter..


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## GTI3527 (Jun 15, 2008)

Sorry to bring this post back from the dead but seeing the finished product has me wanting to fully polish mine. I think my hands are going to hate you.


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