Repairing Ferrari Testarossa wheel

A customer bought some 16″ center lock wheels for his 1986 Ferrari Testarossa to replace the metric wheels that came with the car. The early TR’s had the Michelin TRX tires developed in the late 1970’s, as many of you may know, tire technology has developed quite a bit over the last 25 years. Ferrari changed from Metric sized wheels in the late 1986 production run to 16″ wheels using Goodyear Eagle tires which were a much better tire than the TRX and were no where near as noisy as the Michelin.

After the center lock (knock-off) wheels were delivered I had to re-finish them. One wheel had a sizable dent in the rim section and all of the wheels had curb rash and other imperfections. To remove the dent we fashioned some wooden blocks to support the rim and with gentle hammering and prying got the thing straighted out. Next we welded up all of the mangled rims and filed them smooth followed by a good coating of special etch primer specifically formulated for magnesium castings.

The finished product looked great, bright silver paint on a flawless wheel. It is a real trick to get to the inside of the rim area as it can only be covered with over spray to prevent sags. After painting dozens of Ferrari wheels over the last couple years our customer was happy with the results.