I recently decided to customise my stock rims abit!
first thought id strip off the paint and polish the alloy (repainted various bits black too)so after many hours with progressingly fine sandpaper (finished on 2000 grit), and then a polisihing compound heres the results..
and a of them pic on the car
they (IMO) look much better than the stock paint..
but now the stock centercaps look a little out of place, so i decided to machine up my own alloy centercaps to replace the stock plastic ones.
this is what i started with, a 55mm diameter alloy round.. (this is too small as the back bit of the centercap that holds it in place is 57.5mm, but as the metal place was closed I had to work with what i had, will buy a bigger bit and finish the project off next week
)
then i machined a slight dome on one end of the rod (this will be the part that is visible , so decided to make it slightly domed just for aesthetics)
I then etched the logo that i use on most of my custom fabrications onto this about 1mm deep. (as this is just a prototype i just cut it out by hand without a template so got all the dimensions wrong which is why it looks a bit lopsided )
*for those interested, there are a few instructibles online that show how to etch aluminium, I will not say how I did it here as it can be dangerous. it uses acid and produces noxious fumes etc*
then i put this on the lathe and parted off the domed section. I intentionally cut this 1mm thinner than the coresponding section of the stock cap (for reasons that i will explain later), which i then polished
heres a pic showing the stock cap and my newer one, if you look closely you can see that my one is a bit thinner, and is missing the wider ring at the base that the clip in the wheel presses against to hold it in place.
I then machined the remaining rod flat except for a 3mm diameter 'nipple' in the center,
heres where things got interesting..
I then put the centrecap back into the lathe drilled a 3mm deep 8mm diameter hole in the back..
then into the milling machine and cut away most of the metal (from the back) from the top half of the cap. (its a bit hard to see in the pic, but most of the metal from the top is gone)
now.. the vital part.. a micro bearing (3mm shaft, 8mm diameter 4mm thick)
this goes onto the shaft of the backing 'plate'. Then fit the centre cap onto this (leaving a 1mm gap between them for clearance, hence making the cap 1mm thinner than its stock counterpart so the cap remains flush with the rim front)
heres the finished part (finished for now, as i mentioned earlier the stock cap has a 57.5 mm back plate that holds the cap into the wheel, obviously my 55mm part simply slips thgough this, so until i get some thicker stock i cant completely make up the rest, but as this is simply a prototype for now then it will do !)
and if you havet worked out the point of all this..
then heres a video that should hopefully show you!
[video]http://www.facebook.com/v/10150111923806960[/video]
yes its pretty slow rolling.. but i put the cap in the lathe and spun it up at 800 rpm (pretty close to how fast the legnum wheels are going at 100km/hr) and it didnt even budge a bit.. stayed perfectly upright
first thought id strip off the paint and polish the alloy (repainted various bits black too)so after many hours with progressingly fine sandpaper (finished on 2000 grit), and then a polisihing compound heres the results..
and a of them pic on the car
they (IMO) look much better than the stock paint..
but now the stock centercaps look a little out of place, so i decided to machine up my own alloy centercaps to replace the stock plastic ones.
this is what i started with, a 55mm diameter alloy round.. (this is too small as the back bit of the centercap that holds it in place is 57.5mm, but as the metal place was closed I had to work with what i had, will buy a bigger bit and finish the project off next week
)then i machined a slight dome on one end of the rod (this will be the part that is visible , so decided to make it slightly domed just for aesthetics)
I then etched the logo that i use on most of my custom fabrications onto this about 1mm deep. (as this is just a prototype i just cut it out by hand without a template so got all the dimensions wrong which is why it looks a bit lopsided
)*for those interested, there are a few instructibles online that show how to etch aluminium, I will not say how I did it here as it can be dangerous. it uses acid and produces noxious fumes etc*
then i put this on the lathe and parted off the domed section. I intentionally cut this 1mm thinner than the coresponding section of the stock cap (for reasons that i will explain later), which i then polished
heres a pic showing the stock cap and my newer one, if you look closely you can see that my one is a bit thinner, and is missing the wider ring at the base that the clip in the wheel presses against to hold it in place.
I then machined the remaining rod flat except for a 3mm diameter 'nipple' in the center,
heres where things got interesting..
I then put the centrecap back into the lathe drilled a 3mm deep 8mm diameter hole in the back..
then into the milling machine and cut away most of the metal (from the back) from the top half of the cap. (its a bit hard to see in the pic, but most of the metal from the top is gone)
now.. the vital part.. a micro bearing (3mm shaft, 8mm diameter 4mm thick)
this goes onto the shaft of the backing 'plate'. Then fit the centre cap onto this (leaving a 1mm gap between them for clearance, hence making the cap 1mm thinner than its stock counterpart so the cap remains flush with the rim front)
heres the finished part (finished for now, as i mentioned earlier the stock cap has a 57.5 mm back plate that holds the cap into the wheel, obviously my 55mm part simply slips thgough this, so until i get some thicker stock i cant completely make up the rest, but as this is simply a prototype for now then it will do !)
and if you havet worked out the point of all this..
then heres a video that should hopefully show you!
[video]http://www.facebook.com/v/10150111923806960[/video]
yes its pretty slow rolling.. but i put the cap in the lathe and spun it up at 800 rpm (pretty close to how fast the legnum wheels are going at 100km/hr) and it didnt even budge a bit.. stayed perfectly upright
