Follow up on the Rock Warrior caps, tough finding time to pick at this.
The painted caps are post-final-clearcoat (over the vinyl) with quite a bit of orange peel. Will wet sand and buff again, and then wax. Hot tip: Get some 1/4" or so foam and cut slots for the tabs to hold in place when buffing. No matter what you read on TundraTalk 1A1 Anthracite is not a match for the Rock Warrior color. Either that or they've faded horribly over the years. The good news is -- it's a bad enough match that the contrast looks intentional. I don't know about clearcoat over vinyl but I imagine they'll just get blasted off washing the wheels otherwise.
The bare caps are after a second strip, polishing with Barkeeper's Friend and applying labels. They'll get clear coated too.
Anyone who decides to attempt this; ignore the suggestion from the mfgr to use tape to lift the labels off the backing. Anything sticky enough to actually do the job is likely to mess up the letters getting it back off. Use a very sharp new blade on an X-ACTO knife to lift the vinyl onto the blade, and spend the money to get a small spray bottle of RapidTac application fluid.
In the end didn't end up trashing any of the vinyl so one order was enough to do 12 caps.
Not perfect on the alignment, which you can see from a low angle, but good enough for me and a far sight better than they started out. Also I didn't really want to try to get after every pit in the aluminum from where the clearcoat failed and try to polish as mirrors. They're just wheels and, after I end up trashing them, I'll look back on this one day and either laugh or cringe. Either way beats a meth habit as diversion.
Now I have to decide which to mount on the 200.
Also installed a Slee main battery tray for an Odyssey Group 31, bought a DCS 75ah battery and BCDC50, installed a Pedal Commander, mounted some SAE Squadron fogs. I'll get those and some other items installed next week.
The painted caps are post-final-clearcoat (over the vinyl) with quite a bit of orange peel. Will wet sand and buff again, and then wax. Hot tip: Get some 1/4" or so foam and cut slots for the tabs to hold in place when buffing. No matter what you read on TundraTalk 1A1 Anthracite is not a match for the Rock Warrior color. Either that or they've faded horribly over the years. The good news is -- it's a bad enough match that the contrast looks intentional. I don't know about clearcoat over vinyl but I imagine they'll just get blasted off washing the wheels otherwise.
The bare caps are after a second strip, polishing with Barkeeper's Friend and applying labels. They'll get clear coated too.
Anyone who decides to attempt this; ignore the suggestion from the mfgr to use tape to lift the labels off the backing. Anything sticky enough to actually do the job is likely to mess up the letters getting it back off. Use a very sharp new blade on an X-ACTO knife to lift the vinyl onto the blade, and spend the money to get a small spray bottle of RapidTac application fluid.
In the end didn't end up trashing any of the vinyl so one order was enough to do 12 caps.
Not perfect on the alignment, which you can see from a low angle, but good enough for me and a far sight better than they started out. Also I didn't really want to try to get after every pit in the aluminum from where the clearcoat failed and try to polish as mirrors. They're just wheels and, after I end up trashing them, I'll look back on this one day and either laugh or cringe. Either way beats a meth habit as diversion.
Now I have to decide which to mount on the 200.
Also installed a Slee main battery tray for an Odyssey Group 31, bought a DCS 75ah battery and BCDC50, installed a Pedal Commander, mounted some SAE Squadron fogs. I'll get those and some other items installed next week.
Last edited:
