Are Cromadora wheels Magesium and how to refurbish

[lancialulu]

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

[peterbaker]

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

[chugga boom]

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!!

[ColinMarr]

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

[Zagato]

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

[chugga boom]

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

[DavidLaver]

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

David

[Neil]

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!

[chugga boom]

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

[Neil]

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.

[chugga boom]

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!!!)

[lancialulu]

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

[chugga boom]

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

[lancialulu]

They do look familiar - cromadora pox!

Tim

[thecolonel]

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