What to do with this set of Steel; 86/87 GN rims

[BoyWonder]

Cleaning the garage and I have a set of OEM GN steels.

The good news is I only paid $100 for the set.
The bad news is I bought them at night in a dimly lit parking lot, and they have too much rust and such to even be considered "driver quality"
Not horrible - just nothing I would put on any of my cars.

I know bweavy sells some nice aluminum repoductions for $1000
I've seen decent looking sets of refurbished rims going for $500+ on evibay.

So - the quesiton is - does anyone have any sources or recommendations on having them refurbished, or - am I at the point of diminishing returns by the time I pay to have them reconditioned (re-chroemd + repainted center) considering I already have $100 in them.
i.e. How much to perhaps refurb these or any innovative ideas for making them look decent.

Or any other useful ideas would be appreciated.
Other than oversized paperweights that is.

 

[TurboTGuy]

Call LKQ, they refurbish wheels for dealers and wheel repair companies in several places across the country.

They can possibly do the job or maybe recommend somebody??

It's a start.....

 

[Phoneguy]

Keep two for different tires at the track. See if Brian at Gbodyparts wants the other two, can use them for cores to have them widened.

Bryan

 

[BoyWonder]

Call LKQ, they refurbish wheels for dealers and wheel repair companies in several places across the country.

They can possibly do the job or maybe recommend somebody??

It's a start.....

For the $64,000 question - how much per wheel I wonder?

 

[TurboTGuy]

For the $64,000 question - how much per wheel I wonder?

I'm thinking 150 per max.

 

[BoyWonder]

Yeah - that's not too bad of an idea..keep the two best two and put track tires on them I suppose.

Brian has my WH1 in Bethel and I was going to ask him, but I feel bad about pestering him for every one of my 'issues of the moment".

The poor guy will write back at 9 ot 10 at night.

 

[BoyWonder]

Keep two for different tires at the track. See if Brian at Gbodyparts wants the other two, can use them for cores to have them widened.

Bryan

Does he widen those steels also?

I know he has the wider alum repros

 

[Phoneguy]

I think he does the steels

Bryan

 

[HelloBozos]

Fix'm,clear coat them, an Make a Neat coffee table out of them..(then in 20 years,you could sell them for $400 each?) There worth alot Now, if you never looked up the going rates on them...

 

[mgmshar]

I just went through this with some of the rims that I have. I called two places in the Chicago area to get the price to re-chrome, re-paint, and in two cases widen my rims.

Place A: wanted $350 PER WHEEL to just re-chrome the rims. I was told that nobody does re-chroming in the Chicago area any more, so the rims would need to be sent to California and back. They also wanted $300 per wheel to widen two of them, and another $100 per wheel to re-paint the black areas.

Place B wouldn't even quote it because they are steel wheels that will require re-chroming.

Most wheel places are focusing on alloy rims at this time - they don't seem to have a lot of interest in steel wheel re-chroming. Makes sense, since most modern wheels are alloys (or at least the ones people care about).

BTW, both "Place A" and "Place B" were wheel places that were recommended to me by members of this board, and both were in the Chicago area.

There are likely cheaper places out there, but at this point it probably makes more sense for me to order wheels from Brian at Gbody. If somebody knows different, I'd love to hear it. I'd be happy with a place in either the Chicago or SE Michigan areas. Sucks that I have 6 extra rims lying around, but it costs so much to get them redone.

Good Luck,