TS 250/1 - restoring the wheels

[Gentle Giant]

My TS250/1 looks good apart from one niggling thing: the previous owner, for some reason, painted the spoked wheels (including the spokes) with silver Hammerite paint! From a distance, this looks OK but close up it is hideous. Presumably the rims and spokes had started to show their age, but I'm thinking that there must be better solutions to this problem. The rims and spokes seem in all other respects to be sound.

So, my questions are:

1. Would you attempt to remove this paint?
2. If so, HOW?
3. What alternatives are there for smartening up the wheels short of obtaining new rims/spokes?

Thanks!

[manumensa]

Hello Keith!

Possibly the last bike owner painted the wheels because the rust began work in it.

A rim offcentre, old rust spokes and a very spoiled drum brake in my opinion must be changed for finish the work in one time.
The cheap opcion if the drum brake and rim are not very bad is change only the spokes; clean -and polish- the rim and the drum brake

For nothing changes a paint stripper and patience, clean and polish, perhaps can help you a little tool Dremel style.
For this works I remember my grandmother said me: " Better pain of hand that pain of heart".

Best regards,
Manuel.

[polycyclic]

Hi keith, thanks for the neighbourly acknowledgement on my first post.
I assume your rims are alloy the same as on my TS250. I have restored lots of scratched and gouged alloy bike parts including rims by sanding with progressively finer grades of wet and dry up to 2000 grit - follow this with a metal polish for a mirror finish! Be careful not to remove too much metal on the rims though! The problem will be that the part will start oxidizing again as soon as it's done so will need to be regularly gone over with metal polish, or coated with a clear-coat sray lacquer. For spokes I use wire wool to get back to clean steel which I regularly wipe with an oily rag to preserve. Silver spray paint always looks like silver spray paint and never the plating it replaces, but doesn't look too bad on spokes - from a distance! For stripping paint I use "Wickes" own-brand because it scored highly in comparison tests done by one of the classic car mags.
Blood (from the grazed knuckles), Sweat (from the hard graft) and Tears (when you realize that your shiny wheels are let down by the rest of the bike!)
Cheers, Ken

[Gentle Giant]

A belated thanks for your reply, Ken. The problem of the touched up wheels largely went away when I decided to sell the bike to a friend. He has subsequently carried out a brake upgrade, using the Honda twin leading shoe wired into to a smart MZ rim. The front end, with the polished 2LS brake, now looks very shiny indeed!

The tatty ETZ251 that replaced the TS will probably need some cosmetic attention, so your post will not be in vain.

Sorry for the late reply!

Cheers!