[wyldpny]

...amazing!

Ok, so a few Sundays ago my wife and I went to a huge Mustang show in Aibonito with over 200 Mustangs in attendance. The show was spectacular and as an unexpected bonus I won 3rd place Best of Show!!
That was the good news.
The bad news is that on the way home we wanted to stop by a large flea market we like to go to in Aricebo to get dinner and look around a bit. Sadly as my traffic light at the stop light near the flea market turned green and I pulled out and making the turn, a car flew through a red light heading straight head on towards us. I quickly knee jerk reacted and gunned the stang to the left as I saw the other car swing to the right. Unfortunately whipping to the left crashed me up onto a curb which was not kind to my beautiful stock Anthracite Bullitt rims.Here is a before image of my Stang before the show showing how nice my rims were:



The two rims on the passenger side got badly bent/warped and also received some major curb rash to add insult to injury. The two on the drivers side are also bent/warped but I am told these two could be possibly balanced out with enough weights. With enough weights? That sounds great, not.
Sooo, I finally find a place that repairs rims but they recommend that I first take the two really badly bent/warped rims to another second shop so they can repair the lips/curb rash and very bad bends first before they finish repairing them.

After getting the two badly damaged rims back from the other shop I take the two repaired rims with the other two rims to the first shop for the final fixes.
This first picture shows three of the rims ready for the final fix. One of them was one of the two of really badly damaged rims:

This is the fourth rim that was badly damaged. As you can see it looks good. Especially considering that 1/4 of the lip had been scraped right off with even more major curb rash:


So now the first shop also does powder coating so after they were done getting the rims straight again I had picked out a special color combo for them to do on the rims, since afterall the front face of the rims were badly scuffed from the curb run-in plus they are now showing some finish issues from having the lips repaired, the curb rash fixed and from being re-bent and straightened.

Here is my poor Stang siting and waiting for it's repaired rims to be put back on:


Here are some pics I was able to take of the powder coating process.
Here is one of the rims after having the yellow section done and cooked on:

Here is another rim with the yellow part done:


Once the rims are cool from cooking the yellow powder they spray the black powder on:




Then they had to wipe off the outer lip of any black while keeping it smooth and even:

They had to be very carefull not to bump into or accidently wipe off any black powder from any other areas other than the outer lip:



And now I present the final look.
Here is one of my repaired rims now all done and ready to have the tire put back on, balanced and installed back on my Mustang:




I am told that the other three "should" be done sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Oh yeah, I can't wait to put these bad boys back on my Stang.

Then they will start powder coating a few select items in my engine bay to put some added shiny colors in there

[Stoenr]

Wow! Thats going to look great! I wasnt sure where you were going with this at 1st and I was thinking, geez, this guy could have just went out and bought a new set for what the cost of all this was going to be. No doubt in my mind you did the right thing.

Make sure to update when you get them on!

[Gotadime]

Wow, they really turned out great. Saw this thread on the BAD Club Forums as well and was surprised at the results both times. You'll have to share pics of them on your car.

[jim293]

I like that cannot wait to see it back on the car.

[stlwagon]

Those look really nice... Every cloud has a silver lining!

[wyldpny]

The cost to have all of this done was actually cheaper than buying either a nice used set of same or similar rims. Plus these are now customized and pretty much one of a kind I guess. I just didn't want to go with the same old stock rims again or go with some variety of chrome rims that looks like almost every other stang I see has, you know?

Well, before I can get the rims back on the car I had to first get the tires back on them and then have them all balanced.
Of course I had to get all of this accomplished without getting my beautiful newly refurbished rims from getting scraped or damaged in anyway.
For all of this to happen I had to first go to one garage that had a machine that would not scratch or damage the rims while putting the tires back on:

They were even very careful when putting a new valve stem in:

They even snapped on some special soft pads for where it gripped to the rim:

[wyldpny]

A shot of the back of the rim showing the glossy black powder coating:


Now I am at the second tire shop where they have one of the better wheel balancing machines that can gently grab onto the front of most chrome or other fancy rims and not knick, chip or damage them in anyway:




Ok, so now I guess for the moment you have all been waiting for.....

Here is a before:

and here is after:

[wyldpny]

A few more angles with the new look:

[Gotadime]

Looks great. Glad they worked out so well.

[1mach1]

Very cool. You really have taken a great photo record of the whole process. That's great!

[Stoenr]

Cool, same equipment we have at my shop, just glad I can do my own dismount/mount and balance, so if I get a scratch, I can blame myself.


But thats looks fooking tits!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wyldpny]

You are lucky to have such good equipment plus it's your own place to boot
There are about 20 tire shops within 5 to 10 minutes or so from my house in Isabela and probably 15 out of the 20 shops have the better machines. The shop that mounted the tires on the rims was just down the street from me and he also had a good balancer but as luck would have it it needed recalibrating the day I was there. That is why I had to go to a second shop down the street to then get them balanced.
I think the final results prove it was well worth all the hassle of getting all of this done. Now I can move on to other areas of the car now that I was able to have this problem taken care. Plus getting the bonus of being able to turn this accident into a positive with getting a great looking custom upgraded mod out of the whole nightmare

[jim293]

Looks really good. You will not see to many of those.

[IhaveadopeGT]

I am not a fan of the yellow but DAMN! Your car looks HOT! You definitley scored high in my book. That is just amazing! It's always awesome to read about someone having something unfortunate happen to their pride and joy but then turning it around and doing something amazing. Your car is definitley one of a kind now!!!


If you happen to be taking requests....Could you post some pics with the top down and doors open?

[jeffo]

Nicely done - A+ on creativity and scheme.