I have a 66 Buick Riviera I am working on (slowly) and I spent some time this weekend working on getting it ready to move from the farm to my home in the city where it can be worked more easily. I am looking to have a driver, not a show car The car has steel wheels on it now, but my Dad said there were multiple rims for it out there in storage somewhere, so I scoured the sheds and outbuildings at the farm and came up with 9 rims. There were 5 stock 66 rims in quite poor shape and there are 4 rims from a 71?(?) in better shape. I spent a long time cleaning the 71 rims and had limited success. Here are pictures and my questions 1) After rust removal , the inner creases are showing rough black areas that do not clean up. I believe the chrome is damaged there. Is there anything I can do for these rims? Can I sand them smooth and seal the area up somehow so they stop rusting? Is there a paint that would be a passable camoflauge for just these areas on a chrome wheel? Keep in mind that I would like to simply be able to drive the car on this set of wheels for the time being and have them look "ok" and not breeding rust every time I turn my back ... I will probably end up replacing the rims in a couple years, but currently it is not in the budget when the car needs work on the engine. 2) How in gawds name do I get the center caps off without breaking the tabs on the backside? 3) Can I repaint the backside of the center caps to make them look good again? Has anyone ever done this? What kind of paint might be best ? Thanks in advance for any help! Heather
Once the rust has dissolved the chrome in those spots, the only permanent fix are new wheels or sending these out to be re-chromed.
Anything that will buy me some time until I purchase new rims or have these repaired I guess ? lol I would like to seal that corroded area off somehow so it stops rusting ... I am interested mostly in limiting the damage until they can be properly repaired.... Will wax work?
Or I suppose they will just re-chrome the entire wheel anyhow, so it doesn't matter if they get worse?
Go to Hobby Lobby and get a silver detail magic marker. SOS pad the rust as much as possible and then take a few swipes with the marker. Its in an area that has a weird reflection and wont be that noticeable IMHO. Worked on my Cragar SS's. Re-chrome at will. Bill in TR http://www.sswdealersupply.com/3-8-...bBDvxmQ4mL9-LNnLB-Rvm5IpjSYAQ2025gaAm-B8P8HAQ It aint chrome but the judges be darned. Mines a driver and it looks pretty good to me. Those pens are ultra easy to control and put the paint right where ya want it. For a buck or two you cant go wrong. DO NOT spend the $10 they want on ebay... Dare to be different and do it in an accent color or even black. No worse than those firestone red stripe NEV-R-BITES from the 60's LOL.
Contact Steve Caruso (underdog350) . he may be able to help u by replacing the rim shells on your wheels. U may then be able to send the wheel centres (not the centre caps) for rechroming.
Once the rims get rusted, or pitted there is not much you can do, and getting a set of chrome wheels rechromed is very expensive !! You could also mask off that rusted groove portion on the chrome wheel and rattle can some silver over the rusted area, but it will not halt the rusting and pitting action on the steel. One solution might be to try and find a correct set of '66 chrome wheels that are in better condition ?? '66-'70 chrome wheels will fit your '66. The ribbed, cone shaped centre caps for the '66-'70 Riviera wheel is different than the '71 style you have, but they do make repro '71 centre caps. The retainers on the centre caps are spring steel and will rust very easily which makes them hard to remove. A little wheel bearing grease on the retainers will prevent rust and make them a lot easier to remove. You can paint the plastic inserts any colour you want but any of the detail molded into the reverse side of plastic insert will be lost.
The paint marker is an excellent idea. There are some places on my dash where that will be a big help. Thank You, Sir! Heather, I can't tell from the picture, ( 4 3/4 or 5" ) but make sure the rims are the same bolt circle as your Riv.. They look right, but I could be wrong.
Fine steel wool and WD-40 will polish the rust off of the chrome, but will not eliminate the pitting. Do not use sand paper, that will make it worse. As long as you keep them clean and polished, you can stay ahead of the red rust color. It just depends on how much time you want to invest.
This is a great suggestion and may work better than expected. I've been driving around on junkyard dogs for 20-sumpthin years with this same effort. Mine look downright smashing and only I know they ain't perfect.
Rusty chrome is a big part of my other hobby - 60's/70's jap motorbikes. One thing that works on chrome is oxalic acid. You can buy it at hardware stores in powder form - mix it with water and soak your rims in it. Won't fill pits, but it will clean a lot of surface discoloration and let you deal with the pits. Some guys wipe on silver paint after treating the rust. It can fill in where the chrome is gone, just rub it in and use thinner to take off the excess if you need to.
One of my biker buds does this with black paint on BMWs. He uses a shop rag with paint sprayed on it and rubs it into the pits. Silver (bumper chrome) paint might work the same, I don't know. Could be worth a try. Note that a paint pit is a lot deeper than the millionths of an inch thick chrome plating.
Oxalic acid (don't let the name scare you!) is great stuff! I use it on failed varnish on the wood trim on my boat. It fully washes all the dirt and mildew kinda stuff out of the wood before refinishing. Black wood really looks like new when dried. Its also almost as good as stuff like aluma-prep acid wash for priming aluminum before painting. On the acid part, it seems about 10 times "hotter" than orange juice. May slightly sting a sore cuticle. Great for washing decks and concrete too. YMMV... Bill in TR
Before you put too much work into those 71 rims you should know that they will not fit on your 66 Riviera without spacers. Code 802 or 853 rims will bolt right up. 1971 rims (895 code) have a different backspace and will interfere with your brake drums. I learned the hard way.
I use fine steel wool, then a very small dab of Vaseline, I prevents the red rust and since I wash the car once a week or so it is easy to apply. Re-chroming is more expensive than new repo wheels... and I would not use the tires in the pictures they look way too old.
