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| '67 Duetto with refinished MOMO Vega wheels |
One of the neat features of the �66 Sprint GTV I bought in June was the unusual wheels. They were 6.00 x 14 inch alloys made by Momo. From the Alfa Digest I learned they were �Vega�s� and sold in the early �70s. Sales of these wheels was apparently quite widespread, as I even found photos of the wheels on Alfas in the British book �Alfa Romeo Spider� by D. Sparrow and A. Kessel, Osprey Classic Marques, 1995 (p. 22 and 59).
Fig. 1. Unfinished wheel
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Fig. 2. Refinished wheel in silver
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The wheels as they came on the car were fairly badly corroded (see Fig. 1), as apparently much of the wheel was not originally painted or clear coated and they sat unprotected for at least 14 years.
To remove this corrosion I had the wheels plastic-bead blasted by Gateway Co. (located near Lambert Field). Old timers in the club may remember visiting Gateway Co. in �92 for a description of the bead blasting process and a tour of their facilities. I was charged $65 for blasting four wheels and got the wheels back in two days. They did an excellent job and I highly recommend them.
Next, I painted the wheels with PPG DP50 gray epoxy primer to try to prevent future corrosion. I gave each wheel 2 coats (this used about 1/3 quart primer and catalyst).
I decided to paint the wheels as they originally appeared (two-tone) using Eastwood's Silver paint (#1291Z) for the rims and hole borders, and Eastwood's Charcoal (#1287Z) paint for the background.
After the initial silver coat, I had the tires mounted on the wheels. This was in case the mounting messed up the paint--the silver could be easy replaced compared to the two-tone paint job I had planned. The completely silver wheel plus tire is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 3. Finished two-tone wheel |
In applying the darker coat, I had to mask off the silver part. I did this with paper masks and masking tape. I learned the hard way that I had to be very careful not to leave the masking tape on too long or it marred the paint it was supposed to protect! (If you're going to do something like this, be sure you use masking tape from an auto paint store.) To help protect the painted wheel, I applied Eastwood's Wheel Clear (#1331Z) as a topcoat.
A close up of the finished two-tone wheel is shown in Fig. 3. Also included at the top of this article is a shot of the finished wheels on the Duetto.
The wheels originally came with plastic center caps containing the symbol:
MO
MO
These too were well weathered and not really what I wanted. I sent Momo Inc. an e-mail message asking if they still had caps available for the Vega wheels (54mm) and they indicated that they did not. So I decided to try to make my own.
Fig. 5. Finished center cap |
I had a good center cap from a �Turbina� alloy wheel that features a stylized Alfa badge that I used as a model. I scanned it into the computer, cleaned it up, �mirrored� it left-to-right, and printed it out on HP inkjet transparency film with the laser printer at the correct size. I then painted it on the printed side with silver wheel paint. But I still needed something to mount the emblem on. So I made two disks from 1/8 inch plexiglass sheet (see Fig. 4). The disks were glued to each other with pvc pipe glue. To line up the disks, a 1/16 in hole was drilled at the center of each disk. The emblem was then attached to the disks with double-sided tape. The result is shown in Fig. 5. Looks pretty good, but may be a bit too shiny when viewed from some angles.
[In addition to using a laser printer to print the center cap emblem, I also tried using an inkjet printer. This was less successful. For a color badge I made, the colors weren't intense enough, and for a monochrome badge, the silver paint dissolved the ink and blurred the badge. Sometime in the future I'll try a color laser printer.]
I will have the finished wheels at the club picnic in Sep. '98, so you can see how they turned out if you�re there.
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