Wheel refinish project (Desmond Koenig Specials)

[FLMKVDUB]

Bored at work so I figured I would start a thread to keep track of my wheel build progress. This isn't a DIY but feel free to ask any questions and i'll try to point you in the right direction. Gonna do this a little different than most as far as pics go, since everything is shot with my iPhone and uploaded to photobucket. No Nikon or flickr here

After running some 19" VMR's for about two years, I figured it was time to switch things up a bit.



I traded the VMR's for some MK6 Jetta SEL wheels to use over the winter.



After browsing the internet for a few months I finally pulled the trigger on a set of 3-piece 17x8/9 et35 Desmond Koenig Specials from VR Wheels. I liked the style of this particular wheel since it had a clean old school 5 spoke design much like O.Z. futuras. The faces and center caps are only slightly different and these do not have step lips. I never heard of Koenig Specials, so I did a little research. Turns out they are a german tuning company that specialized in Ferrari, Mercedes, Porsche, BMW and Lamborghini tuning back in the 80's, so I figured they would fit nicely on a VW. They still have a website: www.koenig-specials.com and I assume they are still in business today. There are quite a few videos of their creations on youtube if your interested. The wheels themselves are made in Japan by Desmond, but the faces are stamped modia. I believe these were their original wheels that later got replaced by a similar design made by SSR. They also had wheels made by O.Z. which were the same as the pegasus.



After recieving the wheels from UPS, I was pissed to find that one of the barrels was cracked and another one had two bends in it.






After talking with Jack at VR Wheels, he gladly had the two damaged wheels shipped back to CA and replaced the cracked barrel with another used barrel and fixed the bends in the other free of charge. Great customer service!

About two weeks later the repaired wheels returned. The new barrel was covered with baked on brake dust and road grime, so alot of scrubbing with scotch pads and simple green was needed.





While I was waiting for the damaged wheels to return, I started splitting the other two and began to clean them up



After heating the center caps in a toaster oven, I was able to seperate the pieces. The part that surrounds the emblem is made from machined aluminum and the clearcoat is flaking. I'll be sanding and polishing these.






Meanwhile, I ordered some new 90 degree valve stems with TPMS adaptors



Some other parts that came in: 14x1.5 wobble bolts from ECS Tuning and 73-57.1mm hubcentric rings from Summit Racing



Heres a little test fit of the valve stem with the TPMS installed. I need to drill out the valve stem holes in the barrels a little bit since they are a tad to small.



Next up was to order some metal polish for the lips and bolts. I ended up going with Gliptones Liquid Metal polish since I had good luck with their products on my billet wheels back in my minitruckin days.



So I started polishing up the wheel bolts after a good soak in some simple green. The bolts are chrome plated so not to much work was needed to shine them back up.



The wheels originally were drilled with a 5x114 bolt pattern for 12mm Lug studs. In order to bolt them up to the hub, they needed to be drilled out to accept a 14mm bolt but also needed to allow the wobble bolts to "wobble". So I took them to a machine shop and had them drill the holes out to 16mm and enlarge the cone seat to fit the bigger bolts.




Decided to do a little test fit in the rear to see how much they would poke.




Figured it was a good time to purchase some tires to keep me motivated. After reading some reviews and looking at pictures of stretched tires in different sizes, I purchased four Nitto Neo Gens in 205/45/ZR17.



I decided to do a little mock up for ****s and giggles. Trying to decide what to do with the center caps. Exposed lugs, original caps, or make some flat caps? I really wanna keep the KS logo since the Koenig decal will be gone after the new color goes on. Gotta keep em legit somehow.





And a picture of how much the rear will stretch.



So next on the list is to strip the paint off the faces and drop them off at my brothers shop for some paint. Im kind of leaning towards a silverish gold at the moment, inspired by the MK6 jetta wheat biege color. The barrels will be repainted in a gloss black as well. I really need to get crackin on polishing the lips now too. They dont have any rash but do have some light to medium scratches and a little pitting. I started sanding one of the lips with 220, than 320. I plan to go 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000 than polish with a mothers powerball mini. The lips have a hard clear coat on them which I found is very time consuming to sand off with 220 so im gonna try some paint stripper on them first. More pics and updates will follow as the progression continues.

[JettaGT8V80]

why didnt you just have VR redrill the wheels to 5x112 it was $40 more than wobble bolts

i was going to snag those but got something else instead from vr

and i say keep the wheels silver do black barrels with original center caps

[FLMKVDUB]

Thanks for the input. I didn't get VR to drill to 5x112 because the back pad is actually hollow so no meat to drill through. I also wanted to see them in person first to make sure I wanted to keep them. What did you end up getting?

[JettaGT8V80]

i got the super advans they had they still have the black ones but i got the silver ones

[FLMKVDUB]

After a few coats of aerosol paint stripper and some scraping and scrubbing in between, I dropped them and the barrels off at my brothers shop for paint.




Doing the barrels gloss black and the centers wheat beige metallic.

[FLMKVDUB]

Finished sanding the first lip today. Started with 220 grit to smooth out all the scratches and pitting.




Kept sanding all the way up to 2000 grit.



Than I polished it with a mothers powerball mini and wheel polish. Still has some haze to it but I think a high rpm electric drill will do better than my 18v cordless.

[DoctorDoctor]

Good work! I love seeing wheel rebuild threads

[FLMKVDUB]

Good work! I love seeing wheel rebuild threads

Thanks

Not much of an update today. Sprayed the other three lips and center cap pieces down with paint stripper to get rid of the clear and cleaned them up real good. Started sanding on another lip and still have alot more of that to do...

[msheehan]

looks good but i hate the black and white pictures.

[FLMKVDUB]

looks good but i hate the black and white pictures.

Me too

[FLMKVDUB]

Picked up a Hitachi 2,500rpm 3/8" electric drill today from Lowes and repolished the first lip. The faster drill made a huge difference





I also went over the one center cap that I previously polished



As for the centers and barrells, still waiting for them to be finished...

[DoctorDoctor]

Big fan of the progress. Keep it up

[foundubbedriver]

love stuff like this, nice work so far, keep it up..

[veearrsicks]

[kevin FaKiN spLits]

Nice. I'll make a build thread of my Mitos.

[kevin FaKiN spLits]

Just one question. Where did you get the tpms adapted valve stems? Wouldn't be a bad idea to have with a 3 live wheel that could spring a leak.

[ECS Tuning]

Coming along nice, can't wait to see them done!


PS thanks for the order!

[veearrsicks]

keep it coming good luck!

[mikeh6]

[FLMKVDUB]

keep it coming good luck!

Coming along nice, can't wait to see them done!


PS thanks for the order!

Nice. I'll make a build thread of my Mitos.

love stuff like this, nice work so far, keep it up..

Big fan of the progress. Keep it up

Thanks for all the props Been kinda busy lately and haven't had much time to mess with them but should have some more updates soon

Just one question. Where did you get the tpms adapted valve stems? Wouldn't be a bad idea to have with a 3 live wheel that could spring a leak.

Thats what I figured found them on ebay from this seller: http://stores.ebay.com/LuminicsUSA-S...id=p4340.l2563

[veearrsicks]

ahhhhh i wanna see the finsihed project


nice sanding/polishing job

[deadchicken]

I got the same ones I'm in the process of redoing.
Unfortunately I dont have center caps like you and mine are spraypainted.
But I am hoping you can help me out. Can you take a hi-res photo of just the logo? I would like to replace mine but its not easy to find online.
Thanks a lot!

[FLMKVDUB]

I got the same ones I'm in the process of redoing.
Unfortunately I dont have center caps like you and mine are spraypainted.
But I am hoping you can help me out. Can you take a hi-res photo of just the logo? I would like to replace mine but its not easy to find online.
Thanks a lot!

Nice! They sell adhesive logos on the website; http://koenig-specials.com/special%2...s%20wheels.htm I need to measure the diameter of the ones i have now to see if they're the same size. I'll try to get a good pic later this week if you want.

[JPmkV]

sub'd

[deadchicken]

Nice! They sell adhesive logos on the website; http://koenig-specials.com/special%2...s%20wheels.htm I need to measure the diameter of the ones i have now to see if they're the same size. I'll try to get a good pic later this week if you want.

WOW thanks. that helps me with the center cap part. Something that I almost gave up trying to find.
But the pic I need is of the logo on the spoke, not the center cap.
Thanks.

[FLMKVDUB]

WOW thanks. that helps me with the center cap part. Something that I almost gave up trying to find.
But the pic I need is of the logo on the spoke, not the center cap.
Thanks.

Sorry man, I stripped the paint off the faces so the logos are long gone. You might be able to order them from the company but If your trying to get some made, try searching koenig specials on google images and see if you can find a decent pic to use. Good luck!

[Aonarch]

[deadchicken]

Sorry man, I stripped the paint off the faces so the logos are long gone. You might be able to order them from the company but If your trying to get some made, try searching koenig specials on google images and see if you can find a decent pic to use. Good luck!

do you have this image in hi-res? I think I could use that to get the logo.

[Gyro kidd]

[FLMKVDUB]

So I hit a little bump in the road with the refinishing of these wheels. The centers and barrels sat in my brothers shop for nearly 3 months virtually untouched, so I decided it was time to scoop them up and take matters into my own hands. By that I mean rattle can time

Im going to make these look as professional as possible though, not some half-assed quickie job. I picked up a cheap random orbital sander and went to town smoothing out the machine marks and rough casting on the faces. I also hand sanded the insides of the barrels and sprayed them with self etch primer than a high gloss black enamel. Next up is priming and sanding the faces before I lay down some color.

Here's a quick shot of the barrels after paint:

[FLMKVDUB]

Smooth and ready for primer:



Primered:

[FLMKVDUB]

Did a little searching around for some color choices and decided to try out this rustoleum metallic bronze color:



After two more coats of primer and 400 grit sanding, I decided to do a test run on one of the wheels. I sprayed three coats of color and three coats of clear. After the clear cures all the way, im going to wetsand and possibly re-clear again before buffing the faces out. Heres a few teaser pics:

[rhcp4life]

Lookin good for rattle can

[MK6WA]

Hey man did you use simple green to cleean the inside of the barrels? mine are NASTY

[FLMKVDUB]

Hey man did you use simple green to cleean the inside of the barrels? mine are NASTY

Yeah i used simple green and a green scotch pad and got most of it off that way. For the more stubborn spots i tried wheel cleaner and even paint thinner.