Keep or sell these rims???

fastsc92

Registered User
Should I keep these rims or sell them to get some chrome r's??? There are hand polished 92 early style wheels that are chrome like shine, as well as the center caps. You decide for me before i buy other rims. Having these are kind of unique, but I also love the look of the th r's.
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I'd keep those, personally. The R's are nice but EVERYONE has them now. They don't have as unique a look as they used to.

I would only upgrade to the R's if you needed to go to 17" wheels for bigger brakes / tires.
 
I'd keep the polished stock ones. Most people dont have them so they are different and plus if you get rims thats another $1000 that you could spend in performance mods if you dont get the rims.
 
Keep em.
Nice work on all that polishing, and if memory serves, you also claybarred the paint too... Looks great and like he said the R's are quite common.
Tom
 
very true guys....i think i'll keep them. I'm just making a list of stuff to do for winter. I dont really have much left i can do on this car. The only motor mods that are next are porting heads and getting a cam for this beast that will work great with the nitrous. The only problem is that i dont want to get an adjustable timing set. Anyways, I'll take the rims off my list and use the money for a cam, springs, pushrods, rockers and head work. Thats about $2000 right there...lol...oh well....
 
I would get them chromed.

Now that they are polished I bet it would be pretty cheap to have the chrome applied. Like 75% of the cost of chroming is the labor involved in polishing the stuff first.
 
no, i polished these by hand. And in doing so...it only cost about 8 bucks per rim. But one very very very very very tired arm. Figured it out to be around 14 hours of work per rim. But i like the look so it was worth it in the end.
 
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FastSC92

What are the chances you could post or PM the process you used my way? I have been pondering doing the same to my 92 rims or buying aftermarkets as well. I have seen a few sets done but yours look really well done! I was thinking 17s but I want to lower it and that will make it ride like a tank. I think if I did the stock rims I could drop it some and preserve some of the ride and it would look sweet.:)

BTW nice looking SC.
 
I also agree about the polished stock rims. I always like the unique style of the stock SC rims, especially older ones, and those look marvelous polished. I would see this post about protecting them:

Protect Polished Aluminum

Then again, you could always polish up some Cobra Rs..
 
i dont think i would every polish rims like this again. Too much work and the metal is very pitted. Here is a quick run down of the process. Everything is done by hand. I tryed using power tools but it makes deep scrathes and takes too long. Keep in mind that EACH rim took me 12-14 hours. Once you get started you really cant stop. The metal is very hard and pitted like i said so its going to be a lot of work...and you'll realise that when you start.

Use a jell paint stripper to get the old paint off. I applied it a few times and scraped it down to bare metal. The you'll need to start sanding to get the cast marks out of the wheel. You can use rough paper, but i found it best to use emory paper because it lasts 3 times as long. Start by using rough paper and take your time so that all of the casting marks are out. Then start sanding with medium paper to get out all the marks you added from the previous step. The repeat with fine emory paper. The rim should be very smooth but with many visible scatches. Now start wet-sanding with 220, 320, 400, 600, 800. Make sure to keep the paper very wet and sand just like the previous steps. After this is done i use some 000 steel wool. Then i use some fine rubbing compound on a cotton buffing wheel. After that i finish it up with white rouge on a cotton wheel then jewlers rough on a cotton wheel. Then i like blue magic polish the best. I put a few coats of that on and buff it to shine with my hand and a clean rag. The rim should look like a mirror. If it looks dull, then i would start with 400 wet sand and take your time again. I also did my center caps on a lathe. I made a fixture that lets the cap snap into that then while it was spinning i just ran some paper over the entire thing to get perfect swirl marks. They match very well. I've really got this polishing thing down pat. I did every aluminum piece under my hood and it all looks liek chrome( IC, tubes, top, sc pulley, intake tube, dress panel, water outlet, etc.) If someone has aluminum they'd like polishing i guess i could do it...but it depends on what it is. Any more question feel free to ask.
 
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I've got a question about your polished rims.

Do you by chance have any trouble with flat tires, or slow air leaks from the tires since the polishing?
 
not at all. I removed the wheel weights from the tires to polish but installed them in the exact same spots afterwards. I kept the tires on the rim, and they seal just fine.
 
fastsc92 said:
not at all. I removed the wheel weights from the tires to polish but installed them in the exact same spots afterwards. I kept the tires on the rim, and they seal just fine.

Get them balanced on the inside of the wheel. It looks much better. Most shops won't do it unless you ask them to.
 
Andy 94.....why would his tire leak after polishing the outside of the rim? Not like he took the tire off and polished the inside bead area. Just curious????
 
when it was painted last year i told the guy to NOT put them back on...but he did and it was too soft to take it off at the time. Then i got some script red letters that say "supercharged" and cut the stripes and fit them in....and it looks like it was custom done. I'll prob. end up taking them off. I agree...but then again sometime i cant make up my mind.
 
First of all let me say nice job on the rims. I love these rims polished. As for the question of changing them, i dont know. For the people that say keep them b/c they are unique, they arnt that unique. They maybe polished by they are still the same rim of almost all sc's. So for people to say the cobra r is common i would tend to dissagree. Maybe on this fourm but not in the real world. I think some nice polished cobra r's or cromed would catch more looks than the stock rims. Also if you go with the cobras you would tend to go for a 17x9 which would make your tires 1 in wider which means more grip going to the road and also better handling. Though it isn't much its still better than nothing. There is one last thing that i dont like on the sc rims. They way they were all cast from the same mold, meaning that as you look on the different sides, the cuts will go foward on one and backwards on the other. Sadly this is terrible in my book. They would be much cooler if they went the same way but that doesnt happen. So my opinion. I dont know. I would pro say dont do it if they flaired the same way but as that isnt so i would tend to lean towards the cobras. Also, if your looking for something different the bullet rims could be a possiblity and also more often than not when i see different rims on a tbird they arnt even any of those. There are many brands to choose from all to give you a better loook. Good luck with whatever you choose to have.
 
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