The 2009 show season came to an end. Billo and I did go to a few more shows and meets but I have lost a lot of pictures (yet again) when the hard disk crashed. However all is not lost as I still have the hard disk with me. Its just that I am not willing / ready / inclined / in a position to spend in excess of $800 for the data recovery that the service here costs. I am waiting to return to Pakistan where I am sure it can be done a lot cheaper (load shedding permitting). Billo was washed, dried and waxed, vacuumed inside, oil changed, battery disconnected and readied for her long winter snooze. Winter is also the time when a lot of repair / restoration work can be scheduled. If you have followed this thread from the start you would remember that I had to re-engineer two steel wheels because I could not find any wheels in Pakistan that were similar or better than the ones that came with the car. I was able to pick up a nice clean rust free set in the US so it was time to go back to originals. The front wheels, even though were the best of the lot were still installed with a tube as the wheels were rusted and pitted and were not capable of tubeless operation even though the tires themselves were the tubeless type.
I found a business out in Hiedelburg - a small town near Kitchener, that powder coats farm equipment and wheels. I removed the tires off Billo's wheels and took them to John.
Let me pause here and give you a bit of background here. I had spoken to a number of powder coating facilities around Toronto that I found in the yellow pages and each came up with a figure that was simply un acceptable. Now each one of them does the job the same way but they make it sound so high tech and complicated (and as a result, more expensive) They bring in conditions like 'there is a minimum charge of $300 plus tax plus ...? Heck No! I am not paying that kind of money. My wife already suspects I spend way too much on my VWs than I admit. If I were to tell her I had spent $1000 on a hotel suite that I took my secretary to..etc etc. she would say..?OK. Lets see what you bought for your 'chaheeti' (meaning Billo) this once..?
Joe, on the other hand could have been Abdul Rasheed or Ishaq from Pakistan - simple honest and hardworking man making a living without trying to slaughter his clients with fine print and tech jargon. I knew I had come to the right place when I walked into his work place. He immediately extended his somewhat grimy hand and shook my hand. I explained what I was there for and he goes..I'll do these for $100 if I have the paint you want. If I have to order then it would be more..? For a moment, my heart sank "oh No! $400 for 4 wheels..maybe more and then he said..if you have 5 it would be $125..meaning it was $25 a wheel he was charging. I could live with that. He looked in the depths of his steel cabinet..much like a painter in Pakistan would have, to store the left over paints at his shop and came up with a shade not quite what I had in mind but for $25 per wheel I was not going to be fussy.
I had carried my camera with me and asked if he would treat one of the wheels so I could take some pictures. He loaded two in his bead blasting machine and the wheels came out with zero rust. I was quite happy with the results but Joe put them back for a second spell as he wasn't totally satisfied. I left the wheels in his care and picked them up a week later all done up.
Check out the pictures.
This is what the wheels looked like..the inner disk is original L381 sea green
This, after the tyres were removed.
The torture chamber...
Some other wheels that had undergone the treatment.
The steel beads that are blasted on the wheels to remove rust and old paint.
Three minutes of treatment and this is the result..
Joe is a perfectionist so he wants to have a second go at it..who am I to object!
The wheels nicely powder coated inside and out.
Running tubeless for the first time. The weights looked ugly so I took the wheels to another shop who balanced the wheels without the weights on the outside..some complicated exercise of turning the tyre on the wheel and all. there are some small weights applied to the inside of the wheel, out of sight.
I applied green reflecting tape to the inside disk to achieve as close a combination to the original as possible. I have since added chrome beauty rings with matching truck art (sent over thru the combined efforts of Rehan, Romano and Khalid sahib.)
The new look with the beauty rings installed.
