Gold Wheels

I need to paint a couple of sets of wheels. Anybody have a paint code for the gold wheels? I have 2 different colors here.

Also, I have a shop who repairs magnesium wheels and suggest powdercoating. He has done this with hundreds of magnesium wheels. Wheel repairs are his business and his business is ridiculously busy with a lot of employees in-house and on the road.
I thought this was not encouraged to do?
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Find the gold colour Lamborghini used and get a PPG rep to use their special device to copy the colour. Have your own code made up and start selling it as gold Lamborghini wheel paint. This way you won't have to keep asking for years what the paint code is as it seems nobody knows or wants to divulge what it is.

 

Great advice!

 

IIRC powder coating is not suggested on magnesium wheels.
The problem is that when heating up the wheels there are temperature differences on different part of Your wheel, and magnesium is a bit sensitive on that.
But if Your repair shop has done it dozens of times maybe it is ok ?

 

Good advice. If I found the gold color I would not have ask. But secondly, I think I will have both wheels carefully and professional examined to see if one of them is original. I am almost 100% sure the Jarama wheel is and the Urraco wheel is not.

 

I got a PM the other day for me to give out the gold color. I just told the person that PM'd me to ask Joe. lol

 

I wish I could help. All I can suggest is V-TWELVE'S sage advice.

 

Thanks to GraemeS the gold colour Glassurit F101 C on a Countach.

Also, I was given a paint code that has been used on an SV and Countach. The paint was made by Fikkens and is Paint Code VWL-98C.

Anyone have experiences with either?

 

Peter,

Nothing comes up under Fikkens Paint Code VWL-98C. Do you mean Sikkens? Is this a gold color? What is the source of this info?

Regarding Glassurit F101 C, when I checked, this is not a gold color, it shows as "Grigio Argento F 101/C della Glasurit", a silver paint, as used by Ferrari SpA for the Boxer and the Testarossa. As such, it is not correct for the Countach as it is well-known that the silver paint Ferrari used is a brighter silver than that used by Lamborghini in the 70s & 80s, with Ferrari opting for a semi-gloss finish.

See below original examples of 80s Countach and Testarossa and you get the idea, a moot point I know because this thread is the quest for gold paint.

I don't think there is a paint code on file with Sikkens or any paint supplier for that matter, specifically for the Countach wheels. Even if the paint code was proffered, they would probably not match, especially with the earlier magnesium wheels.

All that said, someone posted a resource a while ago that might actually be useful:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/141842097-post9.html
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The plot of the mysterious Gold wheel paint code thickens!

I start beleiving one will never know unless he pays a heafty fee to enter the small circle of humans being still alive with this knowledge.

 

Ask if he's done a Miura/Espada/Jarama style wheel.

I've seen powdercoated Miura wheels that were just PCed raw. Gawd awful.
Once stripped those wheels can be very rough and require filling.
Mine had bondo on them from the factory because other than tossing them out I'm not sure what else they could have done?
Apparently QC was piss poor back then.
My Bora wheels also from Campagnolo are a much higher quality. Go figure

So get an older reference from him and find out how the wheels are doing.
If this guy has developed a method for doing them well I'm sure we'd all like to know.

Good luck with this Peter.

 

Company often suggest Powder coating because it's easy for them. One huge downside to powder coating is that it will show small scratches over time. If you clear coat them I could see this helping. I would go the traditional route

 

There have been quite a number of questions raised about the gold wheel issue without any final conclusion. So I called Valentino yesterday requesting his input to this question.

He described the painting of the rims at the beginning as a very particular process with powder to apply the two colors (gold and silver) and it was done by the manufacturer Campagnolo and later OZ. At the company, wheels were sent back to the manufacturer for new painting in case of damages during production or road test. Since the original silver and gold powder paint is no longer available (over 20 years now), the factory, on newly restored models, use the silver and gold paint codes from the externals original list (oro 2.463 239; silver 2.463.898 PPG).

 

BS on the powdercoat for the older wheels I don't know about later Countachs and what followed though.

 

I had some modern rims repaired from last winter's onslaught here. The place I used for those powder coats in clear but not the color.

When I restored my Hayashi rims this summer (center sections only) every powder coater I spoke to clear coated the gold because you have too. These were big experienced operations too.

They look nice, a bit thick but they ARE NOT THE SAME sort of bright gold that was on the originals which were not powder and were a single stage paint that did real well for 30 years.

Ask for a sample.

 

I agree with this summation. You can always spot the refinished wheels because the paint has more sparkle, and they have a finish that has more sheen or gloss. Of course to determine this, you'll have to have observed lots of wheels in original guise!

 

Joe, one car that has the Fikkens is David Anderson's S1 which I think you may have seen in person.

 

Peter,

Again, you mean Sikkens, not Fikkens, right?

Yes, Ive seen images of the wheels as re-finished which David shared (below), and whilst he did a nice job, I'm with Staatsof on this one, most refinished wheels are shinier than they ever were.
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According to Wheel Medic-

The original paint has true 24 k gold flakes in acrylic resin. This is something no one can really replicate at this point.

In order to get close to that, you should use Suburu BBS gold as a base coat with a bit of Kandy Gold from House of Kolor added for the sparkle. Don't do a whole coat of that, just a little.

 

Sent to me as Fikkens but I believe Sikkens.

 

That would be interesting to see someone do.

 

Just to clarify what I meant a bit more. There are two aspects of appearance being discussed here. Shiny means a clear coat which protects the finish well. That part I wouldn't be unhappy with if I'm going to actually drive the car but it does make everything look different. It's just like the different between the old acrylic lacquer single stage paints and what everyone puts on now a two stage product.

But there's also the sparkle factor. In the example I cited, my Hayashi rims, I was looking for good durability and so both the base coat and top coat were powder. The places I checked out didn't do any sort of hybrid finishing and the color choices for powder coat in gold were very, very limited. None of them sparkled like the original gold paint did.

That was not a thick coating either but it still looked presentable after 30 years of road duty by an admittedly fastidious but not anal owner. I drove the car in the mountains to go skiing!

That thicker powder refinishing coating turned out very nice but was a real PITA during the post finishing phase. Some spots didn't get masked properly and it had to be machined off for proper assembly of the 3PC wheels. With that original thin paint the manufacturer didn't even bother masking the 20 bolt hole assembly areas because it wasn't an issue.

 

Sources. You gotta corroborate them. Must be Sikkens. Cuz Fikkens doesn't exist.

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/143645144-post20489.html

Interesting thought, did the wheels arrive at Lamborghini already painted by Campy and OZ?

 

It think they did, stickers already applied.