Idiot Mark

[Ryan327]

Well, anyone familiar with guns probably knows what an idiot mark is....well, I managed to put a huge curb rash on one of my rims.  Anyone know if it's possible to get it repaired or if replacement is the only option? 

I'll have to get a picture later, but it's only in the silver part, not the black of the rim, but it's about 3" long of vertical serrations,some are pretty deep. 

Really kicking myself for driving like an idiot and hoping it's not going to cost me ~$450 for a new rim

[panther427]

You would have to take the wheel in or a photo of it and send it in most cases it can be fixed.

[68_GT]

you can do A LOT with a dremel and some sand paper. In fact I almost guarantee you can fix it completely with thos two things.

I repaired a huge ugly spot I put in one of my Expedition 22in Harley Davidson wheels where I turned into a storm drain. All the curbs in my neighborhood are kinda flat, but my wife had parked the front next to a storm drain. I hopped in and turned the front wheel right into the concrete storm drain. I almost cried it was really bad.

I used my dremel (you may not even need depending on the damage) with the finest grit paper wheel just to smooth out the gouges. Then I hand sanded the spots with  220 / 400 / 600 / 1200 / 2000 then I used a mothers powerball to polish it up becasue my HD wheels are polished but clear coated. After this process they shine just like new and you can't tell unless you're looking for it. where the line from the clear coat is missing over the repaired area. Only difference in what you're doing is you prob wont need to polish it to shine, and it might be a tougher area to work on at the edge of the rim unless you dismount the tire that IDK.

you can buy varierty packs of 3M sandpaper at most auto parts stores. It may sound intimidating but it works perfectly. Just tape of the area around the damaged part so it's not sanded on, and take off the absolute bare minimum wheel material with ther dremel / sandpaper for the best workmanship / repair possible and you can definately make it better than it is depending on your ability.

[Ryan327]

Horrible quality cell phone pictures at night, will take something better tomorrow.

[68_GT]

simple fix if you're willing to put a few hours of elbow grease into it. I would. My Harley Davidson wheel damage was worse with deep concrete gouges.

Just sand that entire area with coarse to fine paper taking off as little material as possible to minimize the repair area.

Can't get any worse

Is the aluminum area clear coated ? I can't remember ? If so don't bother trying to clear it yourself. Polish it up best you can and go, or get it professionally repaired / cleared coated. Or go get all of your wheel powdercoated solid black (after smoothing that out) ??

[geswek]

Huge is an understatement.

You whacked the HELL out of that curb dude!

DANG.

Hope you get it cleaned up and back to new mate.

[Ryan327]

With how deep a few of them are I dont know if I can remove enough material, wasn't sure if there is a filler of some kind to use.  The long thing part is pretty light and could most likely be sanded out, but the ones that are on the spokes are a bit deeper. 

And the wheels do have clearcoat on them.

[Ryan327]

I was making a right turn and it just hit the curb perfectly to drag it right down the rim.  then ran the curb over with the entire back wheel.....i'm an idiot.  really wasn't looking where I should have been

[panther427]

I got my Grand Prix GXP used and it  had some curb rash.. I took several grades of wet sand paper... AND


Here is a link to the forum post on LS1tech.

http://ls1tech.com/forums/ls4-performance/1116940-some-car-mods-i-have-been-working.html

[BiGMaC]

Ryan... Dude... Those pics make me cry!... No more!  SHO us when you've got it fixed,

[Ryan327]

You're telling me...I'm not ready to cry, more like homicidal except the only person to blame is me!

[crash712us]

There are many places out there that can repair your wheel. Detriot wheel and tire is one of them. I believe there are several on ebay as well.

[Ryan327]

I found a friend of a friend that does this, said he should be able to do a pretty good repair. we'll see, hopefully it's a 90% fix at least.

[SHOdded]

Good luck, Ryan.  Those are beautiful wheels!

[JimiJak]

Awwww bummer...and a fellow XSporter too.
If you're into doing it yourself and think you've got some gouges too deep for just sanding alone I would probably go the route of TIG filler ie. a braising rod and a blow torch. You don't need a welder since it's a low temp kind of thing, won't be able to powder coat them after this though since the fill might melt. A local welding shop should be able to help you with material specifics. Also I've heard good things about lab-metals filler. Never used it though.