Partly Chrome Fuchs

[Pstallo]

I've seen several pics on the forum of fuchs wheels where the spokes and rim only are chrome like mjshira's in the attached image. Is there someone selling these or do you have to find a chrome specialist that can do it? Mine are the plain, black fuchs.

[Pstallo]

Or, are these wheels polished and not chromed?

[catuck]

They're polished, clear anodized then masked off and painted. You can have it done or do it yourself (except for the anodizing). Do a search there are several high quality refinishers out there - Al Reed, Lindsey... here's a tech article:
Pelican Technical Article:wheel refinish

Or, you can buy aftermarket wheels from this site with this finish.

[Cooper911SC]

Polishing the Fuch's is the way to go.
Chroming can/will lead to hydrogen embrittlement. The chrome will also eventually begin to peel and cause problems. It often starts peeling at the edge of the inner wheel barrel lip where the tire bead seats. The tires will slowly lose pressure.
This is one reason many manufacturers do not offer chrome wheels.

The wheels in the pic. are the "bright star" look.

When the whole wheel center is painted black it's considered "dark star"

Polishing and anodizing gives the best protection for the aluminum, but leaves it looking a little satin.

Most polish and leave raw AL. This requires maintenance by hand polishing with metal polish from time to time to keep it looking shiny.

Cooper

[porwolf]

There is no such thing as a reliable "chroming" of aluminum. Electrolytical chrome deposits just does not work on aluminum. It does not adhere for long and will soon peel. The proper process for aluminum finishing is electrolytical anodizing which forms a very strong surface bond. Polished aluminum can be anodized but will lose some of the brilliance. Clear paint finish is probably the best choice but that does not adhere very well either. But it can easily be redone.

[bhmkv]

I have chrome Fuchs and want to switch to the classic black or rs finish.

[Arne2]

I much prefer anodized over polished. Here's one of my wheels just after I finished the black trim paint, freshly back after being professionally stripped, polished and anodized. I'm very pleased with the result.

[Pstallo]

Arne2, that's exactly the look I would like. The wheel looks great! Did you do it yourself or have it done? Any tips on it?

[Arne2]

Originally Posted by Pstallo

Arne2, that's exactly the look I would like. The wheel looks great! Did you do it yourself or have it done? Any tips on it?

It is possible to do some of the steps yourself, but the anodizing requires a metal finishing shop who has experience with doing these wheels. I shopped around and could not find any local anodizers who were willing to do wheels, for fear of liability and/or inconsistent appearance.

So it is best to send the wheels to one of the established wheel restoration shops for this work. I personally know of 4 shops that re-anodize Fuchs - Harvey Weidman, Al Reed, Rohrer Wheel Restoration, and Wheel Enhancement. Harvey and Al are well-known shops, both do great work. Reviews on Wheel Enhancement are mixed, some have had good results, others less so. I had mine done by Rohrer, and am very happy with the result. Rohrer does not do the full range of work that the other shops do (just re-finishing of good condition wheels, no repair), but has much faster turn-around than the others.

In my case, I also asked Rohrer to not do the paint work, as I wanted to do that myself. Any of the shops listed above will do the trim paint as part of the job, possibly better than I did.

Here are the steps that are required:

Completely strip all old finish - paint, anodizing or chrome. When stripped, the bare aluminum wheels will look something like this:



Once stripped, the areas that are to be left unpainted need to be highly polished:



Then the anodizing is done. Wheels then look like:



At this point, the trim paint can be applied. As noted, I did this part myself. Clean thoroughly, mask off the areas to be left unpainted, prime and paint. (Make certain you don't paint the lug seats.)



Once done, strip the masking, clean, have tires mounted and put them on the car, and marvel over how good they look!