90 20v Sport Speedlines

[Audiden]

My new Audi wears its original 15" wheels & there are also 4 spares with it too - including the one in the boot.

I've never liked this design of wheel, in that it looks fussy & old fashioned.

But... I'm a stickler for originality, so what should I do? I don't essentially want to mess with the ingredients that make this car reasonably special.

I like the plain Ronals on other Audi 90's, but were these ever fitted to the Sport?

The tyres are 205/50R15's, should they be 60 section tyres?

Can these wheels be easily & successfully refurbished..? They've been badly painted before (including painting over the chrome 'bolts') & this paint is now flaking off, they're corroded & a couple of tyres need changed too. They would need dipped... would this knacker the chrome effect bolts?

So many questions !

[pimpdriver]

Kenquattro will be along in a minute...

[john johnson]

He may be delayed, he could be deciding which trainers to wear and getting them out of their cryogenic safety deposit box

[Coxy]

Pain in the arse to refurb but they do look good on a 90.
You'll have to remove all the bolts and there are 30 per wheel.
And you'll be lucky if you're able to reuse any of them!
You can still buy them but at 40p a bolt, refurbing them becomes expensive.

[Ben]

They are indeed a pain to refurb, I'm part way through refurbing a set, so far I've knocked the heads off the fake bolts with a wood chisel (and intend to glue them back in place) paint stripped and wire brushed back to bare alloy, then sanded the polished rim to remove the corrosion. I can't decide on painting the whole wheel or just the inner and have to keep polishing the rim every month as there is no lacquer product that will stick to a polished alloy surface, which is why they corrode in the first place

It took about 15 hours to get to this point and if I had gone out to work instead, I could have earned the money to pay someone else to strip off the paint.

[David Small]

They do look so much better with a polished rim though, mine are painted but I'm determined to get them back polished during next year. Going to get a set of Series 4 tenspokes to put on the car whilst I do them.

[ChrisG]

The ET looks wrong on that wheel, for a saloon ?
iirc they were something like 37mms ET on Coupes and 45 on saloons ???
Got to say I think a clean factory finish or better is the only way to go.
If this is a daily driver by all means get a set of the plain Ronals - for regular use to help preserve the originals.
205/50 was the factory size ( was on the 80 Sport we had) but that tyre in the picture looks more like a 60 profile - different makes do look 'fatter' or 'thinner' though.

[David Small]

Originally Posted by ChrisG

The ET looks wrong on that wheel, for a saloon ?
iirc they were something like 37mms ET on Coupes and 45 on saloons ???
Got to say I think a clean factory finish or better is the only way to go.
If this is a daily driver by all means get a set of the plain Ronals - for regular use to help preserve the originals.
205/50 was the factory size ( was on the 80 Sport we had) but that tyre in the picture looks more like a 60 profile - different makes do look 'fatter' or 'thinner' though.

The picture shows the Coupe, like the Coupe quattro 20 Valve that Alistair and Alex used to have, it was in the concours at Audi's in the Park, looks nice with deeper dish though, would love a set. There was an excellent set on ebay last year or the year before and they went for a sustantial amount of money.

[Coxy]

Originally Posted by davallew

The picture shows the Coupe, like the Coupe quattro 20 Valve that Alistair and Alex used to have, it was in the concours at Audi's in the Park, looks nice with deeper dish though, would love a set. There was an excellent set on ebay last year or the year before and they went for a sustantial amount of money.

Given how much they cost to refurb, you can understand why!

The spare on our old CQ20V had never even been out of the boot and was immaculate and just how Speedlines should be, but sadly they always seem to suffer from lacquer lift and then they do look shabby.

I've got 35 Speedline bolts sitting on my desk next to my computer at the moment. (although they were sold in bags of 60)
The label on the bag says "Distributed by Votex GmbH West Germany" part no. 893 071 788.
Given the fact that it says West Germany, I kinda gather that they may be old stock, but I know Martin at Retro Auto recently bought 120 of them from Argentina (as that was the cheapest place to get them).
Demon Tweeks do sell the bolts in different colours but at over a £1.00 a time, you'll be looking at a very expensive set of wheels!

[wildoliver]

I still owe you for those bolts Coxy!

Pm me how much you want inc post and a paypal address and I'll bounce it over to you.

Oliver