WHEELS AND TYRES
Alloy wheel refurbishment is big business these days, and you tend to get what you pay for. There are companies who’ll come to your house and offer a cheap and quick refinish, which is fine if you’re on a tight budget, although if you’re keen to do things properly then a company like Lepsons is often preferable.
Lepsons’ process goes through six stages: they start by inspecting each wheel for wear or damage, and talking through what’s needed with the customer. Then they put the wheels in a heated, agitated chemical bath overnight to strip them right back to bare metal – after washing the stuff off, this is the stage when any repairs are carried out and the wheels are bead-blasted. The third stage is priming, which sees the wheels passed via a conveyor belt through an oven, then into a spray booth for powdercoating, before going back through the oven again. The next stage is spray-painting them in the colour and finish of the customer’s choice, then lacquering them. (Back in the oven again!) Stage five is a fastidious qualitycontrol inspection, and stage six is the refitting of tyres and wheel balancing. So it takes a little time, but they’ll come back better than new. Lepsons can also help if you have steel wheels which need knocking back into shape and repainting.
Sourcing tyres can take a bit of consideration. You’ll almost certainly be able to find new tyres in the correct original sizes from any high street tyre fitter, although if you’re a stickler for originality it’s sometimes possible to find originalspec rubber: for example, the Sierra RS Cosworth was supplied new with nowdiscontinued Dunlop D40 tyres, and these 1980s items do occasionally appear on the market. They command huge prices though, and we’d suggest that tyres this old are for show use only…
Longstone Tyres are the experts when it comes to encyclopaedic knowledge of period-correct tyre designs and dimensions – if anyone can track down a newlymanufactured and classic-spec Michelin TRX for your Granada or Pirelli Cinturato for your Capri, it’s these guys.