Picked these up today

[AbramJ]

Bought Harbor Freight's manual tire changer and portable wheel balancer today. Used some coupons and store credit I had. I put the wheel balancer together and tried it out on wheels I knew were balanced. Looks like it works like it should.



I haven't put the tire changer together yet, but I've watched several videos on YouTube and figured why not buy it. I think I'll build a portable stand for it right now since I don't have anywhere to permanently mount it. I figured I don't have fancy wheels and I like trying things myself.

Now I need to read up on different ways to balance tires (airsoft bbs, stick on weights, snap on weights, etc).

 

[AbramJ]

Been using the tire changer the last two days, got three tires dismounted so far. It works pretty well.

I've got a sand blaster from harbor freight I need to try out now that I've got my compressor all set up. I'll try it out on the wheels I took the tires off of.

I was thinking of getting the harbor freight powder coating kit to test out too, but I don't think my wife would let me use our oven to bake parts, nor is it big enough for wheels. We've got bigger ovens at work I could probably use, I'll just need to see if they have a compressor I can use or find a portable one to borrow. Otherwise I'll keep trying different spray paints to find a somewhat durable one.

 

[AbramJ]

Well I used my sand blaster. It leaks air like crazy, that's what I get for putting it together before I had the compressor set up to check for leaks. I'll need to take it back apart and reassemble. It still works, kind of. I was using 80 grit aluminum oxide. Anything more coarse that'd work better? My results are probably lacking because of the air leaks and I feel my compressor probably isn't big enough. It's a 20 lb blaster and my compressor is a 21 gallon. I'll see what results I get after rebuilding my blaster.

I went to harbor freight last Friday on their parking lot sale. Picked up a small 8 gallon compressor that was $50 off. I also bought the powder coating system and some white powder. That night I had to work so I went to work a little early to test it out. I took one wheel that I stripped the paint off of (using the blaster and paint stripper). I put the wheel in the oven while I set up the compressor and powder gun.

After I was done with that I pulled the wheel out and tried the gun. At first nothing really came out. I was a little frustrated. I went out and checked the compressor and realized I had it set too low. Put it to 20psi and everything worked great. I powdered the wheel really well and put it back in the oven. Let it bake for 45 mins then turned the heat off and opened the oven door. After it cooled I pulled it out and it looked great. Has some orange peel, but I like it. Still much smoother feeling and a better looking finish than the spray painted wheels.

I did notice, though, that the hub cap still chipped the finish. I'm unsure if that's because it wasn't a thick enough coat, didn't cook long enough, etc. I'll need to experiment more. Since it's a wheel and the chips won't be seen with the hub cap on I'm not too concerned.

 

[max 02]

Cool! That did turn out nice!