Here’s a small update on some of the wheel stuff I’ve been collecting. After refurbing a set of pretty haggard RSs last summer (Read Here) a few things became apparent. The front wheels were in nice shape overall, but the rears were rough. I got them cleaned up pretty well, but the rear lips were mostly toast, and the inner barrel on one of the wheels needed some stress cracks welded up.
I had a guy who fabricates sprint car tube frames and roll cages throw some burly beads on the cracks and it was all working nicely until after getting back from a weekend trip, when I noticed the passenger rear tire was flat. The welds held up for a month, but more stress cracks were forming, the damage was pretty much just beyond repair.
I had him reweld the wheel right before H20, and proceeded to further reinforce it with a liberal application of JB Weld, which worked, as it survived the weekend and trip home. I took the wheels off for the winter shortly thereafter and put the stockies back on, and that’s how it sits in the garage now.
The next phase was to figure out what I wanted to do for next year. Originally the RSs were going to be a temporary setup, but they really started growing on me. I could sell them and look for another set of wheels, but the cracked barrel put a monkey wrench in those works. I’d have to fix them just to sell them, hmmmm.
That lead me to here; for a long time I’ve lusted after a certain set of factory BMW wheels, and knew as soon as I owned a BMW I wouldn’t be able to hold out any longer. Seeing this (Read Here) only further stoked the flames. Maybe I could sit on the RSs, and slowly start piecing together a set of the turbines while casually browsing for a matching OEM RS barrel in the vortex classifieds…
As luck would have it, some random browsing on vortex right after H20 added some much-needed clarity. I found a pair of barely used RSs, same model number as my haggard rears, for a song. A week later they were on my doorstep. While all this transpired, I had also found a set of mostly complete turbine covers (the hardest part of the equation to track down) on bimmerforums for cheap. YOINK. Christmas in September.
So as it stands, the current plan is to disassemble all of my RSs and refinish the centers. I’m not totally sure what color I will go with, but I’m leaning toward stock silver or one of the lighter Audi grays…something simple and motor-sporty. I will reassemble with the current black center nuts and bolts after redoing the centers and polishing the lips on the new rears to match the current fronts.
The turbines will be a longer work in progress. I need to get 4 new center logos and a whole center cap piece for one of them. They’ll need repainted, and I still need to track down a pair of 17×8 wheels for the front and a pair of 17×9s for the rear, which will be the biggest challenge. That’s the fun though! Hopefully I can have both sets done and ready to mount by the end of next summer. We’ll see…
-Ethan
