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95GT 17" rims painted? can they be stripped down/polished?

Anyone ever done this? sounds odd but I like the polished aluminum look, and I like the triangular double spoked 17" wheels, but I'm pretty ambivalent about the coating/paint they put on them. I think they would look great chromed or just highly polished...

As with my seat swap idea there's surely something obvious that would make this a no go. Problem is I want to do something to it every weekend but no longer have any mechanically inclined buddies to come over, drink beer and help do real work to it. So I keep coming up with minor kooky ideas to help keep me from waxing her until I wear the paint off (or haze her up with more swirl marks). Last weekend I pulled the instrument cluster lens housing out to get at some fuzz and grit that had gotten in there and used scratch off to polish the lens (hey it was easy, required only one set of hands and was pretty hard to f**k up ;)

If it's feasible I might go get a cheap messed up one off a wreck and experiment with the dremel. Is the aluminum under that coating a different alloy that maybe wont polish up too well? I bet the lug cap would be a problem. Any thoughts?

Reply to
Simon Juncal
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Painted rims usually are painted (or more likely powder coated) because they don't polish well, or are subject to corrosion problems. A satin finish might be a possibility, or even a polished finish if you use a good clear coating to protect the finish. However, I wouldn't go at them with a Dremel. Find someone in your area that does bead blasting, and have the paint/coating blasted off. If it's done right, you might not even need to do a whole lot of polishing. A really good beed blasted finish can look pretty good!

Reply to
Mike

Do any aftermarket companies make a polished knock off of these wheels? I've definitely never seen the three split spoke wheels in chrome or polished alum. Now I'm thinking the metal hub cap part would make modifying a set of them pretty much pointless, as I doubt they'd match even if the cap can be polished.

Reply to
Simon Juncal

at 03 Jul 2003, Simon Juncal [ snipped-for-privacy@erols.com] wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@erols.com:

Triangular double spoked 17". Which style are you referring to? Do you mean the ones like on the site in my sig? As the only triangular doubel spoked one's I've seen are the 15" versions of that with 3 double spokes instead of 5. I love that design even more than what's on there right now but Ford said they only made it in 15", not even 16"...

Reply to
Paul

I believe he is referring to the style on my '94. See this link

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Reply to
Richard

Thems the ones. I think the 17's were part of an upgrade package. (I'm sure someone here knows better than me) which would make sense because as far as I can tell my 95 GT vert has everything that was possible to upgrade with the exception of an automatic transmission.

Took me somewhere around a MONTH to find the car in Virginia... Nearly every "loaded" Mustang I found was automatic, or wasn't a convertible. It didn't hurt that the first owner only put about 8k a year on it, very obviously garage kept it, and kept it bone stock, even the mufflers.

Reply to
Simon Juncal

Those wheels came with the 17" performance tire option.

Reply to
Richard

at 05 Jul 2003, Richard [ snipped-for-privacy@shaw.ca] wrote in news:eCBNa.389494 $ snipped-for-privacy@news1.calgary.shaw.ca:

I think so to. But are those not 15" ones? I have the 17" version but they have 5 dpslit spokes instead of 3. See site in my sig fo rpics of those rims.

Reply to
Paul

The 17" tri bar wheels were 94-95 ONLY

96 saw the first year of the 17" split 5 star. These were indeed an optional wheel package.

Here is the 17" tri-bar in chrome on our 95 convertible.

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TIM -aka- snipped-for-privacy@AOL.COM

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Reply to
Musttanguy

That's what I'm talking about, did you get them chromed? Round about how much did it run you?

Reply to
Simon Juncal

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