Lancia Motor Club

I am in the process of refurbishing a set of Cromadoras for my Fulvia.

According to my wheel man if they are Magnesium they are very hard to strip due to the porosity of the metal (they get stripped but the metal soaks up the acid...) and bead blasting takes off all the edges.

Any advice?

Tim

Its no consolation but I face the same problem and would like to know how to proceed.

yes they're mag and yes they're a pain to re finish, only real way it chemically dipped then baked then powdered then baked again, mag is a bit of a moisture sponge and traps water, then six months later the wheels are corroded again!!

I took my Cromodoras for refurb to Lepsons in Gillingham (Kent), who were highly recommended. Lepsons assumed they were not Magnesium and found out the hard way that their Al-alloy process didn’t work! I had to pay the difference to get really nice wheels. Yes, they are a magnesium rich alloy!

Colin

I had some refurbished in Belfast - same story ...

They did a good job ... as far as they could ... but they ended up powdercoating them 3 times to try and fill the pit holes that appear once they are chemically dipped. If you were looking for 'concourse' they wouldn't do ... but I'm happy with them.

We did discuss trying to get the holes welded up but they reckoned the time and hence the price would be astronomical

You can of course buy brand new copies ... Compomotive wheels make them (I think in standard alloy now) but they were commissioned by a German firm who are the sole distributors for them - I think when I checked they were something like 300 euro each

i use this guy   http://www.thewheelrestorer.co.uk/    , top bloke and can do mag alloy, he's going to do my hf wheels in the next few weeks and recons he can flat the powder and then re-powder again to fill in the pitting, he will also give a small discount to lmc members as arranged by me however i imagine these type of wheel will be reasonably expensive to restore as its alot of work

The very fact that Chugga is sending the work out to someone else is telling...

David

I am interested in how your HF wheels come out I have some 2000HF wheels for S2 coupe 1.3 which badly need refurbing, I assume the 5.5 x 14 wheels are made of the same material?  Perhaps we need to send a job lot via Chugga!

neil i'm pretty sure your going to be the lucky one here, dont hold me to this but i think the 2000hf wheels are "real alloy" not mag so you shouldn't get the same problems , like i said i'm not 100% on that but maybe someone else could confirm?? i will take some pictures of before and after with my wheels and post them when they get done but they are in A HELL OF A STATE!!!! so i'm not expecting mirracles with them

Is there any code on the inside of the wheels to indicate what material was used on the different variants?  I was quoted silly money a few years ago to do 4 wheels, they obviously did not want to do the job.

right that settles it, as i'm writing this the cromadoras are coming off the fulvia and will be going off to roger later this week, i'll post a photo of how bad they actually are and when i get them back, atleast then you can see the standard of work and i can tell you what they have cost to get done, roger also does mail order so its not a problem when it comes to distance,he's recently done some ferrari mag alloys which looked fantastic, as for casting numbers etc i honestly have no idea  ??? easiest way that i can think of is weight, see if a 2000 wheel is lighter than a hf wheel , it should be because its half an inch narrower however if its alloy it will probably be the same weight or heavier (this is just my theory and i may well be wrong!!!)

As it happens the guy I use (d) seems to have become more "commercial" as he has previously sorted some steel wheels to start with, then I gave him 4 5.5Jx14 2000 wheels (which I think may well be same mag material as they are as light as a feather) and he muttered all the stuff I initially posted, and they were in a pretty poor shape. Anyway he bead blasted and primer filled twice and had a nice finish (not concourse) but acceptable, then he did a single 6J wheel I had which came out really fine. I cant remember how much I paid except every time the price went up! I suspect I could persuad him to do these four but he is overloaded with more commercial work - seems all top end cars being sold get there wheels done before they go onto the forecourt....

Thanks for the advice...

Tim

as promised........  wheels will be collected next week and hopefully back within a week

They do look familiar - cromadora pox!

Tim

I have a set (4) complete with newish centre caps to dispose of.
they will need some work but I can always get that done first if
anyone is interested (2000HF wheels)

Geoff

My Cromodora pox might be a different strain!  Just scruffy.

neil my advice to you is if the wheels are not corroded just give them a light rub down and paint them, dont take the paint off them compleatly as this is when they absorbe moisture and the corrosion sets in, when i sold my hf i did just that to the wheels and they still look perfect, they were in similar condition to yours to start with, the problem with these wheels is once they have started to corrode its stopping them doing it again

Thanks for the advice, I did consider doing that and I had started to rub one down, the edges on one of the rims is not great may need some filler and building up with paint, do you have any recommendations for a suitable paint, not bright silver as the wheels were more subtle in their finish.

To be honest i just use a vauxhall silver thats a bit grey and not too IN YOUR FACE, i can look for the paint code if you like but i tend to just look at cars in car parks for ideas  ::) eg dads augusta is a standard modern vauxhall straight blue, easy to match in the future and any paint place can mix it, i painted my friends appia in a honda colour that was near as damn it to the origional lancia colour , it just makes life easier if something were to happen to them in the future, hope this helps james

Hi all. I am new to this forum, but I have recently had my cromodoras refurbished by a couple of chaps in a village called Saunderton which is near High Wycombe. These were recommended by a specialist in Ducati motobikes who regularly has his customers wheels done. As I understand it the magnesium in the alloys makes them more porous than pure aluminium alloys. One of the guys carefully shotblasted the wheels, and the other filled the holes caused by corrosion (they are 40 years old!) and repainted with several coats, the first quite thin to allow it to absorb. The whole lot cost £325 for 4 wheels, and I am delighted with the results. Haven't put them on the car yet as I am refurbing the head at the moment.
Hope this helps a bit.
Mike

Hi Mike

Welcome and thanks for that input. Could you divulge the company or telephone number etc or is it a state sectret??

Best

Tim

Thanks for the welcome, and the embarrassment ::)
I had lost the paper where I wrote down the names and numbers, and have no invoice. However, since you ask, I checked on the internet and this is one of the guys:- 
Aaron Metal Polishing & Shot Blasting
01494565369
West Yard Industrial Estate, Slough Lane,
HIGH WYCOMBE, HP14 4HN

I have added a few pics as well, at least I think I have as this is the first time I have used the forum, and the preview does not seem to show the pictures!

mike welcome to the forum hope you enjoy it as much as us
hate to put a dampner on this but the wheels you see in my pics were shot blasted , filled primed and painted 3yrs ago and dry stored afterwards!!, like i said there is no way of stopping the corrosion unless the wheels are painted hot, if they are painted then baked the moisture is still trapped, my wheels actually looked worse after 6 months than they did when i sent them off to be done however they looked fantastic when i 1st had them back, roger the wheel restorer has had this problem himself and the only solution is to strip the wheels, bake them, powder whilst hot then re-bake, i'd be amazed if anyone gets a good result that lasts any other way, i've had 3 sets of these wheels and the only ones to survive where the really good wheels that went on my hf, these weren't corroded and i didnt strip the paint off them at all, i'd imagine if they were wet painted hot then they would be ok however prima is also porous and lets the moisture back into the wheel especially if they were wet flatted between coats, sorry to sound so negative but i'm only saying mine and rogers experiences of painting these wheels  they're BL***Y AWEFULL !!! and this will be the 3rd time that these wheels have been restored, both previous times traditionally shot blasted and wet painted and both times lasting less than 12 months  :'(

From what research I've done no-one is doing a repro 5.5x14 - only the 6x14 which will only fit the HF's and cars with flared arches. I would have though there was quite a big market for the 5.5 - for all the standard S2/3 cars and the 2000's.

And judging by the state of mine they are definetly mag alloy!

Gus

yep agreed on the demand for them!! , 6j's just about went on my 1.3 with 165-80-14 tyres instead of the hf 175's but they are close to the rear arches!! glad you've cleared up about them being mag, someone once told me they were normal alloy but i've never owned any to be sure,

I stripped my 5.5in 2000 wheels  with Nitromors paint stripper. They have a yellow coating underneath. Then rinsed and heated in the oven to expel moisture. Filled the worst holes with body filler, then painted with acrylic aerosol and several coats of lacquer. No corrosion problems since 2008. Probably not so durable as powder coating and not for the perfectionist's eye but certainly good enough for appearances and for everyday use

Just to put my oar in :D
While I think they look great, are they really worth all the aggrevation and cost ::)
apart from appearance can you actually tell any difference?

Brian
8227 8)

NO LOL!! they do strech the tyre a little more and make the steering feel better again, a bit less tyre roll but thats about it

Chugga, you fitted 165 x 14 to Cromodaras, interesting, I did fit much larger 185/70 x 14 to my 5.5x14 wheels in 15 yrs+ ago, but that was a compromise, there is not really suitable (slightly) wider tyre with the same gearing as the original tyres on a 1.3 when I looked, I could fit some new 165s on the repainted wheels

Oh oh! Looks like I may have some problems..... >:(

mike i hope your wheels do last as i know how dissapointed i was especially the 2nd time around when mine bubbled up, if they have baked them between coats or it was done in a moisture free workshop you should be ok fingers crossed , neil i had to fit 165's on the 6inch rims otherwise they wouldn't go under the 1.3's arches, tyres are nicely stretched and not over stretched, we have fitted 175-70-14 to a few fulvias recently and they look fine on the standard steels, i've just fitted 165's to my steels as i wanted to keep the car 100% origional + they were free off a suplier  ;D "perks of the job lol" , anyway my wheels have gone off today for refurb , i'll post some pics of them when i get them back

I can say Dunlop Sport Sp01 175 14 70's have transfromed my HF steering from the old 185 65 14 Pirelli P6000,s.

Tim

Cahps and Chappesses,

Mag wheels are VERY different to standard Aluminium equivalents and Cromadora 13" 6J ones are now 40+yrs old.  They are prone to cracking (internally as well as around the venting apetures.

There are just 2 places in the EU I could recommend for this job. One is very expensive in Germany (call Peter de Wit/Vere Lancia for quotes but sit down first!).

The other expert is in York. He refurbished 2 sets of these wheels for me and the process involves the use of a Kiln to aerate the wheels and remove internal mositure before using Aircraft spec primer (like the green/yellow Zinc Chromate style of the originals). Baking is needed at each step. 

http://www.ianjemison.co.uk/

I have one set spare and unused if anyone wants to buy some.

Best

had my wheels back this morning, fantastic job as always , sent my dedra wheels off this morning as 2 were badly kerbed (not by me!!") will put some pics up of them when i get them back too,

Hope you're keeping the highlights, one colour overall spoils the appearance.

Brian
8227 8)

Brian i was just sitting here confused as to highlights and thinking  "what highlights  ??? " then suddenly the penny dropped  ::) i've got 16 inch delta hpe turbo wheels on my car not the usual dedra turbo rims, for me they look a little more modern and fill the arches better without looking too boy racer, i bought 5 new rims when i bought the car however 2 were scraped "NOT BY ME!" so before corrosion sets in i'm getting them refurbed