# Building two sets of RH ZW1



## Dr.AK (Jul 17, 2007)

So,

while these are not going on a VW, I figure I might post this up as maybe someone will find this interesting. I am currently building two sets of RH ZW1, there might even be a third set joining them if I can find one in the specs I desire for cheap...

As some of you may know, I drive a BMW E39 Touring as a daily driver. Being that I am kinda broke and don't want to spend a fortune on the car, especially after I crashed it into a guardrail, the car will be build on a budget. 
However... split wheels are still a must for me, as I wanted to go wide.

However, I wanted to keep a kinda oldschool flavour, so I went with 17s.

Some facts about the RH ZW1: 

- two piece split wheels
- inner half of these wheels is always 6.75 inch 
- high offset and designed to be run with adapters for all bolt patterns (they come as 5x112); wheels are centered using the adapter (yes, I do know there'S a few rare-ish sets out there with native 5x112, 5x100 and 4x100 designed for use without adapters)
- 36 bolts

This is the set for my E39 I picked up. 8.5 x 17 ET53 and 10x17 ET35.



















As you can see in the picture, my E39 is a bit multi-colored with black doors, fender and everything else in grey and the rear quarter panel in filler. This is due to a small crash a few months ago which destroyed the whole passenger side. When I had the quarter panel rebuild, I had both rear fenders pulled by about 2 cm each.

What is the goal for this set?
Simply put, a old-school wide and poking small-ish wheel fitment for my E39. Kind of like this: 




















To achieve this, I would re-lip these to 10x17 ET35 up front and 11.25x17 ET19 in the rear. Adapter size to mate them to the car's 5x120 PCD will probably end up being 45mm / side up front and 30mm / side rear. End results may vary depending on fit when I finally get tires mounted. 


I started by splitting the wheels. This proved kinda hard as someone had re-built these before but used way too much sealant (on the mating surface as well, which is not necessary at all).




















The 1.75 inch lips of the 8.5s were too small anyways, so I sold these.
The 3.25 inch lips of the 10s were sold as well, as they were a bit bent and coincidentally a friend had just picked up a set of 10x17 squared and was willing to part with two lips which were in considerably better shape.

Next I cleaned up the wheels and started sanding. Removed all the old sealant using a Scotch-Brite disc:



















I then started sanding the 'new' 3.25 inch lips for polishing. I started at 320 grit and had to stop at 500 because... well, I had no more sand paper, heh.











Next, I painted one of the wheels for testing purposes. I went with belton Molotow graffiti paint because for a rattle can it holds up quite well. I did not use a clear at this point... which I should have. 




















Continued with painting the rest of the wheels. Barrels in black.










Also I finished sanding the lips. I had stopped sanding at 500 grit earlier and no I went up to 800, 1000, 1500, 2000. I did not have a buffing kit at this point, so I just put in some elbow grease and some time with Autosol on a rag and the lips came out like this... shiny, but the reflections were not as clear as I liked.




















Then I got a buffing kit and went at them again... can't really tell the difference all that much in the picture, but in real life it made a world of difference. Also picked up 45 and 30 mm adapters.











And of course, Adapters meant it was finally time for a test fit. This is just 10x17 ET35 with 45mm adapters all around... I ordered the wider rear lips a few days before, but they had not come in yet.










Front



















And this one was lowered with photoshop to see how the end result would look like... I like!











A few days later this showed up... cat in a box... oh, wait, there's some tiny lips in there as well, almost missed these.




















Yup, 4.5 inch lips. This brings the rear wheels to 11.25 x 17 ET19. I also got some polished stainless steel center caps.



















Compared to 8x17... wait, 8x17? Oh, yeah, I picked this set of 8x17s up a few days earlier as well. These will be refinished to sell. 





























Next up was to refinish the bolts... while sorting through them I discovered that I had actually 3 different kind of bolts mixed together. 35 stainless steel ones, 23 chrome ones with a square-ish head and 86 chrome ones with a more rounded head. Ugh. I picked out the ones I had the most of and ordered new ones to completement them. The new ones are a tiny bit different as well, but not really noticeable. 

The remaining 86 bolts had to be cleaned up of course. Someone painted two of the wheels with the bolts mounted sometime, so there was quite a bit of paint on them.

I tested the process on a bolt of the black 8x17 set first as these had been painted without splitting as well... it worked, so I went for it. The process was to just dump the bolts in a bucket with thinner and let them soak over night. The next day, the paint could be rubbed off with a rag.





































Then I placed each bolt carefully into my drill and polished them using a rag and Autosol.






































That took some time but finally I got all the bolts done. That's pretty much it for these wheels so far... until... we got curious and stuck them on a friend's Mk5.




























:laugh:


However... my friend touched them with his dirty gloves. Not a big deal normally, but somehow this left some stains on the paint which I can't get off no matter what. 

That means these wheels will be repainted, this time with proper clear... but first, I'll build a spray booth for wheels very soon. 



That brings us to the second set of wheels! 

RH ZW1 in 8x17 ET60. 

These will be kept in the same specs, just refurbished. I picked these up as I got a good deal on them and because I had so much fun building the other wheels that I was kind of disappointed to be kind-of finished with them. 
Once they are done, I will sell them on and likely look for some other project wheels.

Splitting these was a breeze compared to the other set. These have likely never been taken apart but they were painted once without splitting. Badly painted, I might add. 

I split one of them and got to work... first, I went about stripping the paint from the lips.

I used Ethyl acetate for this... trust me, this stuff is mean. Apply it, after 5 seconds the paint starts to bubble and you can wipe it off with a rag. Can get a whole lip stripped in just a few minutes like this. Downside is this stuff has pretty mean odors which will cause effects on your brain, so I'd strongly advise wearing a breath mask and also glove.










Under the paint the lips were in decent condition. I wetsanded them using again 320 - 500 - 1000 - 1500 - 2000 and then went at them with the buffer. The polishing results are definitely better than the 10x17s I did, so I might have to redo these as well.

I got two lips done today and dismantled the third. Will continue working on them after the holidays.




















The bolts will receive the same treatment as the bolts from the other set - that means paint stripping and re-polish. The paint on these wheels is quite bad as well, which means a repaint is in order. I'm still undecided on what color I'll go with, but at the moment I'm leaning towards a medium grey like this:










But like I said, before painting I will need to build a wheel spray booth. I will get cracking on this ASAP after christmas.

I will try to document the rest of the build better, especially take my proper camera with me more often. Hope this is of interest to someone.


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## BT12 (May 25, 2012)

So much win.

I like the e39 :thumbup:
Hey does grafitti paint hold up better? Or that you dont need to prime? Jsut wondering


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## Dr.AK (Jul 17, 2007)

BT12 said:


> So much win.
> 
> I like the e39 :thumbup:
> Hey does grafitti paint hold up better? Or that you dont need to prime? Jsut wondering


Thanks!

Reasons for the graffiti paint are:
a.) I don't have a big compressor, so painting with a spray gun is out of the question at the moment 

b.) for a rattle can it is surprisingly resistant (in terms of stuf like gasoline spillage etc) 

c.) it actually sticks really well to a non-prepped surface (as that is what it's designed to do in the first place), but I'd always recommend sanding and if necessary filling beforehand (I didn't need primer because I sanded the old paint smooth and sprayed on top of that. If you have a good paintjob as a base and there's no major flaws in it, it would just be a wast of time and resources to strip everything and build up a new paintjob from scratch, IMO. You need to find out first if the old and new paint will work together or if they'll have a chemical reaction, however) 

d.) it's cheap (a can of this graffiti stuff is 3.80€ / 4.60$ - a regular can of spraypaint from the hardware store is like 9€ / 11$).


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

Thanks for putting this together. Added it to the build list. :thumbup:


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## Dr.AK (Jul 17, 2007)

So i promised to document the rest of the build better. 

Yesterday I polished the third lip, today I set about doing the fourth.

These are pretty much all the tools I used except my drill, which is just to the right of the picture...










The wheel to be split.










Removing all the nuts.










Once they're off, I like to tap out the screws from behind with the wheel placed face down.










Bolts removed.










I set about cutting into the sealant using a knife. Cut as deep as possible.










Stop! Hammertime! Just a few good whacks with a rubber mallet until I saw a visible gap between wheel and lip. 










Then I hammer in a wooden wedge to keep the halves apart.










Do this two or three times and the lip will practically jump off.



















Now I had to see about stripping the lip. I think I stated this early, but I like to use Ethyl acetate. Just spray on...










Let sit for a few seconds until this happens:










Hose it off...










The rest needed a bit more of the Ethyl acetate to properly come off. Small bits can usually just be rubbed off with a towel. It was just a matter of minutes to strip the lip this way.










Next, i set about cleaning the backside of the lip a bit. I have a sanding sponge (basically a soft sponge with sandpaper on it's sides) that nicely adheres to the shape of the lip and is perfect for the job. 










All clean. Had to use some gasket remover to get the rest of the sealant off.










Now is the time to see about removing curb rash. Luckily, this lip didn't have very much, just one very slight spot, so I gave it a quick hit with the 240 grit sanding disc.










Then it's finally time to start sanding.










Like I did on the other lips, I went 320 - 500 - 1200 - 2000. The 500 to 1200 might seem like a big step, which is why I like to sand twice with the 1200 grit, once in a horizontal direction and once in a vertical direction. Same with the 2000 grit. This is the result:










Now I fired up my drill with the polishing wheel...



















And this is probably the greatest part about polishing, because you can instantly see something happen.



















Once the whole lip was polished, I went over it with Surf City's Killer Chrome on a microfiber towel and looked for any spots I might have missed. I did find a few which I hit again on the buffer (after this pic).










Done! Wait. No, not at all! Because we didn't polish one area that I personally find critical on polished wheels. I am looking to sell these once they're done and I am just going to assume the new owner will want to run stretched tires. That means the rear of the outermost lip should be polished as well to add some bling where the tire stretches and pulls away from the lip.










But now... all done!










The polished lip already looks loads better than the ugly black painted lip. Of course, the center is still not very nice to look at, so that will have to be taken care of next...


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## Dr.AK (Jul 17, 2007)

So, sorry for the potato like pictures, I didn't have my proper camera with me.

Anyways, I built myself a spray booth for wheels so I can get started on spraying them... 



















The wheel can spin freely for a minute or so on the stand, but I'm still trying to optimize it so it can spin for several minutes and also it needs something to center the wheel... but it works.










Makes for a nice even coat.










Now I'm also waiting on a entry level spraygun and some clear so I can actually apply some real clear coat.


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

^ Good idea. Although I'd be worried that I would soak the leading edge of the spokes and not spray enough on the trailing edge of the spokes.


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## 03_uni-B (Sep 6, 2005)

ugh, can't see most of your pictures on my work computer 

Can't wait to read when I get home.


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## Dr.AK (Jul 17, 2007)

Thanks guys!

Today's progress...

I ordered a cheapo spray gun a few days ago along with some clear coat. Got everything in the mail yesterday and tried it out today. Did some test sprayings and once i figured out the settings that gave me a reasonably even coat, I just went at it and sprayed the wheel I painted yesterday (which dried flat like the barrel on these wheels: http://abload.de/img/rh_fin1fzjsn.jpg ).

Up to now, I've only ever used rattle can (the black infact is graffiti rattle can, which sticks really well and covers well but leaves no shine) and the gun is pretty different. Amazing how little paint I actually used! 

There's a few runs in the finish because I went too close, but overall I'm pretty satisfied. Will sand out the runs and either spray another coat or try to polish the sanded areas, but first I'll let it dry for a bit...


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## Dr.AK (Jul 17, 2007)

Went to my shop today... paint had dried and oh boy I think for my first time painting with a gun, this is acceptable!

Here's a small comparison of what I started with and where I'm at now... quite a difference!


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## BT12 (May 25, 2012)

Looks pretty good what are u using for a compressor? And how much air in scfm is coming out? Id spray at home but my small compressor doesnt have enough air . And im too cheapo to buy a stronger one. Harbor freight sells some good cheap HVLP spray guns... have read good reviews on it for small projects.

Looks good tho.


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## Dr.AK (Jul 17, 2007)

I am unsure as to the SCFM.

For the time being, I just use the one my dad bought 10 years ago. Just a cheapo Einhell (german reseller brand) Euro 8 / 24... that means 8 bar pressur max, 24 liters of volume. According to the type sheet, it sucks in about 210 l of air per minute...

It's barely enough. You can lay down a coat on a wheel without hassle (it will start pumping about 3/4 through), but anything bigger would be too much for the small thing. 

I'm planning to upgrade to a bigger one once I've really got the hang of the painting itself.


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## Enur (Jan 28, 2007)

I'm in the beginning of a rebuild of my RH ZW1 wheels, and I have been reading you posts here!

Good stuff, and great Pictures...

Did you strip the original RH clearcoat from any of your outer lips, and if so - how did you do it?

I would love to remove the clearcoat without to much damage on the original surface below it. That would make the polishing so much easyer!

The Ethyl Acetate you write about, did it only remove the Black paint on them?

Maybe I have missed it, but what torque setting did you use at the bolts on assembly???


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