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04-28-2008, 05:39 PM | #1 | |
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my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
As most of you know, 12 inch tires are becoming very hard to find. My 93 metro will need a new set soon. The current ones are dry rotting after only 15,000 miles. I chose to upgrade to the 13 inch steel. I will have a better choice of tires and hopefully better ride.
So, I went to the junk yard and couldn't find any newer metro rims. So i checked the list of what fits. I found a late 80's early 90's front wheel drive Mitsubishi Mirage with 13 inch rims 4.5 inch (114.3mm) bolt pattern and neat center caps, so I bought them. They weren't to rusty. Price of the rims was $15 each. $60 total Next step was to have a tire shop remove the old tires. $10 total Next step was to clean them up before painting. I searched and found several methods of paint stripping and sanding etc.. also sand blasting. I called a local shop and they said to bring them in. So to save my time in prep work I had them blasted. All I can say is that they look awesome! Blasting cost $10 each (includes front back and tire bead) $40 total. My total costs thus far is $110 for the 4 rims. I will post more pics as I do the finishing work. I have the 10x1.25 bulge lug nuts on order. I plan to use duplicor or VHT spray can wheel paint in black with a clear on top.I have heard really good things about these brands. I am not sure if I will paint the center caps or not. They look nice in their pollished crome finish now and will match the crome lug nuts. But I may paint them black to match the rims. What would you do? More to come this week. Ross |
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04-29-2008, 06:10 AM | #2 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Very nice, look like the originals to me. I'd paint the wheels black, with chrome lug nuts and center cap, and pick up some chrome plastic trim rings.
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04-29-2008, 08:59 AM | #3 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
VERY nice thread and great photographs !
I wish others would post photos of this quality! Nice work. I understand that if you buy the right height and width, you can almost match a smaller sized tire in radius. Go to: http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html Three years ago I bought an extra set of 12 inch rims and got 12 inch Snow Tires. I'm kind of committed to 12 inchers - wish I had gone the 13 inch route...Damn! DoctorBill
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04-29-2008, 08:44 PM | #4 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
I actually prefer the original sparkle silver color, but black rims with chrome rings and nuts look sweet also. I was thinking of upgrading to 14" from my 13" wheels, but we will see.
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04-30-2008, 01:23 AM | #5 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Man those look sweet. Makes me want a blast cabinet =) And thanks again for the quality pics.
-MechanicMatt
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05-04-2008, 12:58 AM | #6 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Ok, I was able to get some more done today.
I ended up buying all duplicolor wheels coatings. Self etching primer, flat black wheel paint, and clear wheel coating. Using spray cans is not as easy as you would think. I had issues with the paint occasionally spray a large "glob" of paint. It took some partice to get it right. I found that that a 2X4 worked nicely to keep the rim off the ground. I could roll the rims on the 2x4 to paint rather than flip the rim over and over again flat on the ground. Also by having the rims upright, any dripping pain from the can drip would go on the ground rather than the rim. I had to also paint the tire bead area, cause that area was sandblated too. Here are the rims with several coats of primer. Here are the rims with several coats of flat black wheel paint. Here are the rims with several coats of clear. I had to do the primer, paint and clear coat on the same day. The instruction on the can don't want you waiting more than 1 hour between coatings. If you do, they say to wait 7 days for the paint to totally cure before recoating. They said the clear would "wrinkle" if you waited more than 1 hour to recoat. I then polished the center caps with stainless/crome pollishing compound. Here is what the Mitsubishi Marage rimls look like with the center cap laying on the rim. I ended up using 2 cans of primer, 3 cans of black paint and 1 can of clear. It became breezy and I used more paint than I should have. Total cost of paint was $40 Total cost of project thus far is $150. Its ending up being more than I wanted to spend. I am almost at the point where aluminum rims would have been easier. I think I will keep the caps crome. The lugs will be crome, and I am thinking of 13 inch crome trim rings. I will have to see how the the rims look with tires on them. What do you guys think? 1. All black wheels with black center caps and crome lugs? 2. Black wheels with crome center cap, crome lugs and crome trim rings? More to come... |
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05-04-2008, 11:55 AM | #7 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
black center cap
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05-04-2008, 04:28 PM | #8 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Again, nice photographs!
Tell us what camera you used and how you edited the pics - for everyone who would like to do as well....! I hope your rims won't get scratched up when they mount the tires. Where I live - Farm Country - everything gets filthy immediately - I should paint all my cars dull brown as if for camouflage. DoctorBill
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05-04-2008, 05:58 PM | #9 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
The camera is actually an old, 1st gereration, digital camera that I bought in the year 2000. The pictures were taken under low res., about 640X480. Most software that comes with digital cameras have a function called "quick fix". The quick fix will edit the image to a standard contrast, brightness, colot etc. 90% of the time the quick fix results in an outstanding edited photo.
I use the free photobucket.com to host the images. Its really rather easy to do. Just follow doctor bills instructions. You then post a link in your mesage to your photobucket account. With photobucket you can also do video. I may try that when the tires are on. Ross |
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05-12-2008, 07:31 PM | #10 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
The "bulge" nuts came in. They were on backorder, so if you are thinking of using them you should order them in advance.
Once again, these are the lug nuts that allow you to put rims on your geo that normally fit the bigger studs (such as going from 12 to 13 inch rims). The nuts are 10x1.25 so they fit the smaller studs on the earlier 12 inch rim geos. The nuts are "bulge" to fit the wider hole on the 13 inch or aftermarket rims. Here is the bulge nut next to a standard 12 inch wheel geo lug nut Here are the bluge nuts held up against the larger hole on the 13 inch rims Tires are on back order too. I am going with the highly rated kumho solus-21 175/70-13 These are for daily driving and not performance. |
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05-13-2008, 11:31 AM | #11 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Very nice.
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05-13-2008, 11:32 AM | #12 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Very nice.
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05-15-2008, 07:52 PM | #13 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Wow those are pretty nice! Get them done soon so we can see the final result. I'd go with the chrome trim ring and it's a toss up with the black center cap or the chrome one.
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06-04-2008, 07:14 PM | #14 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Well the tires came in from tirerack.com They were on backorder.
These are the Kumho Solus k21 in 175/70-13 I went with this size to give me a little more tire width. My family has this thing about scraping the curb.... ' The tires are the highest rated in their class. I mostly wanted an all season tire with good winter ratings. The 12 inch kumho powerstars on my metro now are really bad when it gets cold on the ice and snow. One thing that I notice with the tires mounted is that they are heavy. This will eat into my mileage around town somewhat. The speedo will be about 4% off, so I need to take my miles driven and add 4% when figuring out MPG The trim rings are on order, I will post before and after pics of the metro soon. |
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06-04-2008, 07:18 PM | #15 | |
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Re: my 12 to 13 inch steel wheel upgrade project PICS
Tires were $46 each. With shipping $220 total for all 4 tires
Cost was $60 to have tires mounted/balanced and weights put on the inside of each rim. Total cost of everything so far is $450 Much more than I was thinking when I started this.. |
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