86 Testarossa Wheel disaster!

If they wind up ruined, consider buying this nice set of reproduction wheels from an Italian wheel manufacturer who purportedly bought the OEM tool. I did, and they’ve been great.

https://m.mrfiat.com/ferrari-testarossa-front-wheel-center-lock-8x16.html

 

same problem I had with my chromodora for my BB. with sandblasting you cannot remove all the "paint" but you will remove the magnesium. so you may take sandpaper and also a dremel to remove all, then get the wheels heated to about 170°C for minimum 2 hours to get all the moisture out. then put on 2 compound primer, then the paint and the clear coat, all wet in wet.
I tested several things with coating but after a while the coating in the edges got air bubbles.
now since 1 year I have no problem anymore
how long ? ? ?

 

I believe the TR wheels are a more conventional Aluminum casting alloy -- they are not the difficult-painting "light alloy" (~30% Mg) material used on 308.

 

I think so too steve
but my BB wheels are much magnesium

 

Yes, the older model cast wheels, with little offset, are the "light alloy" (with the high Mg content), but, when they went to wheel designs having very large negative offsets, they had to go to a stronger cast material (as the extra thickness needed to give the required strength in the light alloy would negate any weight benefit of using the light alloy).

 

No way those wheels are the original tool. They simply don't look the same. On the original monodado wheels the inner facet where the pedals of the five spokes bend down have no additional chamfer from the center pentagon. These are wheels based on the later five stud style but made to fit a monodado. I know, it's a subtle difference. But I can spot it a mile away and so can a concours judge

 

Many years ago I refinished a set of "early" wheels, not knowing what the exact material composition was, I was afraid that blasting would be too aggressive, so stripped them and sanded them by hand. I removed 90% of the paint and underneath was a white primer coating that was practically impossible to remove completely. Since this primer was so tough, I left it in place, and finished sanding by hand (Lots of work). I then had a pro-painter prime and paint the wheels, and they turned out beautiful.

 

I just had some cam and valve covers stripped of powder coating on my 308 and they used a very expensive stripper specially designed for this purpose. The chemical is not something the average DIY’er should play with I was told!

 

You’re probably right. My eye isn’t sharp enough to see the difference. The wheel’s distributor told me about the tool being purchased when I went to pick up the set at their warehouse.

Are you talking about the switch from metric (Cromodora?) knock offs in the early examples to the standard (OZ?) knock offs sometime in ‘86? Or when they took the later knock offs and pretty much just put a 5-lug pattern on it? I thought the ‘86 and ‘88.5 wheels were identical except for the obvious aspect.

 

I have a guy in Columbus, OH that did my '77 308 magnesium wheels if you need it.

 

You need to find somebody who specialises in magnesium; if they don’t know what they are doing they will destroy them.

They are about but hard to find. If you were in the uk I could help.

I can only suggest google searching and maybe looking for somebody who specialises in bike rims as they are magnesium a lot.

for info. http://www.tpcs-magnesium-refurbs.co.uk/