Both the front and rear wheels from this bike had not been taken appart in a long time. In addition, the bike had been stored outdoors, and subjected to weather extremes, without any sort of protection.

After removing the bolts that fasten the two "rim halves" together, it was quite a struggle to actually remove the rusty and weathered rims from the tire itself. The rubber from the tire was stuck to the rim, and was not letting go.

To seperate these, I sprayed some WD-40 lubricant between the tire bead, and under the rim. I allowed this to sit and soak for a while, often "prying" the two appart, using a flat screwdriver.

After about three hours of prying, soaking, pulling and pushing, I was finally sucessfull in seperating the four rims from the two tires.

This revealed that all four of the rims had suffered from years of neglect, and exposure to water. They were severely rusted, but not through to the other side.

I straightened as many of the dents that I could, then took all four of the rims to the "liquid/bead power blaster", and worked on them for about ½ an hour each.

Once all the rust was removed, and and the rim surface was once again cleaned back to "clean metal", I primed these with grey spray primer. I used Tremclad because it has some fairly good rust resistance.

I let the primer dry for about 4 days, then applied 4 coats of Tremclad silver paint to each of the rims.

While waiting for the paint to harden I cleaned the tire surface with some automotive tire cleaner. I also cleaned off some built-up rust deposits on the tire tubes, and repaired a couple of very small "slow leaks".

Three weeks after painting the rims, I re-assembled the wheels.

Both Wheel After Restoration
These turned out really nice.

Wheel with the "front hub" placed on it.