How easy or difficult it is to remove the center piece from a 3 piece wheel. From looking at the wheel...it's seems pretty straight forward...just undo the bolts and pop that sucker out. However, im sure it's not that straightforward...or is it?

As many of you know...i have the 3 piece kinesis k58Rs and if no one wants to buy them, im just going to have the centers powercoated black, since I love the design of the wheel. It would be much easier to remove the centers myself, if indeed it is a DIY job without the need of any special wheel assembly machines.

Any thoughts? TIA!

 

Bill,
The inner and outer rim portions of 3 piece wheels need to be sealed to prevent loss of air. The hub piece (piece #3) acts as a clamp to hold the inner and outer halves together. If you unbolt them and remove the centers, you will run the risk of losing the seal, although not likely as long as you are careful and don't stress the inner and outer sections through movement or jarring.
I would really recommend you give Dave Martin at Wheel Enhancement a call and have them do the job for you. www.wheelenhancement.com They are pros with building, resurfacing and refinishing wheels of all sorts. I bought my wheels from them. Tell him, Ken sent you. (Don't know if that will help, but it can't hurt )
I believe you will want to replace the bolts during reassembly and ensure they are properly torqued as well.

Good luck, they should look killer when you are done!!

 

I would recommend having a wheel expert do the job, you dont want to save a few dollars and risk anything going wrong with a multi piece wheel, lets face it you would be driving 50mph on these.

 

i probably would not recommend doing it at home - the last few guys who took their centers apart and sent them 2 us for painting either strippped a few bolts, or was not able to re-assemble them for whatever reason.

Leave it to the pros

 

Thanks for the replies...

I figured this would be a job for the pros to do! Cant blame me for asking...I love DIY jobs!

 

Porsche and 911 World recently did a DIY article about three piece wheels. The person doing it didn't appear to have any problems and their walk through seemed to be fairly straight forward. It did highlight what "not" to do or what to avoid.

 

Chad,

Do you have a link to the article?

 

I disassembled the 3 piece BBS magnesium racing wheels I had in my 928 several times. With those fragile wheels you had to be careful to torque the bolts correctly. I don't see why you can't do it. I put a layer of silicone sealer on the seam after I assembled them for insurance. If you are lucky you may be able to remove and replace the centers without removing the tires. Be sure to clean any new paint off the mounting surfaces, or mask those areas off in advance.

 

Kinesis did say that they do not remove the tire when removing the center piece.

 

I have refinished a few sets of wheels, two piece and three piece wheels. It's really easy and straight forward. You may need to purchase some O-rings and some hardware in advance. Depending on how the wheel is assembled.

Not worth the hassle to send out, packaging up the wheels is more of a hassle then just demounting and assembly of the wheels. The time it takes you to package up the wheels and ship them you could easily put back together.

 

Mark the centers so that you can reassemble them in the same orientation. I'd bet you won't even have to rebalance them if they have a good centering lip.