So I had a set of iForged Challenges that had a black powdercoated face and gold powdercoated lips. I didn't like the black face and the gold was fading in the rears and looked awkward with the mismatch shade from front to rear in the sun. Here are the before:


At first, I wanted to just remove the gold lips to remove the awkward shades of gold. A local shop was asking about 500 to sandblast lips and polish, but as a DIY, i did some research and bought necessary supplies. Here is the product after removing the faded gold:


After doing all 4 barrels, I saw a member on an Audi forum page who did the same exact DIY with the iForged with similar color scheme. And he went from a black face to the bare aluminum of his wheels and influenced me to remove the black face as well. Here's the process:




Polished the wheel bolts while they were off the car as well. Here's a picture comparing the two:


Total time I spent was about 25 hours, which is an estimate. In reality, I spent quite a few afternoons 3-4 hours at a time to get these to where they are now. Here are some shots of before and after on the car!


Before


After

 

Wow, what a great job, and nice DIY details. I saw your rims in the FS section and nice to see they stayed in a good home! Those are some high quality wheels and deserved some TLC

 

Thanks! They were previously for sale, but due to financial reasons as a student I decided to fix these up and keep them for the summer

 

Looks much better IMHO. What method did you use to polish the bolts? I'm in the process of refurbishing some 3 piece wheels as well but have been putting off the bolts because there are so many.

 

I left them in apple cider vinegar for about 24 hours along with the nuts to rid of rust, then sprayed them with WD40 after they were dried.

Then I applied Chemical Guys Metal Polisher on the bolts and buffed off. For all 160 bolts, it only took me about an hour or so.

 

Much better than the black n gold combo. Looks great. Good job on the polishing

 

I know the previous owner of these wheels! They looked great on his G, but the fading lips definitely had to go.

Great job on the refinish! Look great now!

 

Can you link the thread to diy? I plan on doing that for my volks

 

I followed this video: and a few DIY on other forums. But after i stripped the powdercoat off the lips, I found out that the lips were already polished so I didn't have to do any sanding. I only applied compound + polisher and protective wax to make it shine more.

 

about to do the same thing with a set of iForged emotions!