Refinishing Wood Wheels

[wattslm]

I have one rear wood spoked wheel that is soaked with oil from a leaking rear axle seal. Has anyone had any luck drawing the oil out of wood wheels so that the new paint or varnish will stick? Is there anything that will seal the surface so that the oil will not bleed out? I would appreciate any ideas. I'm trying to get this car ready for the June tour.

[Guest]

Well here is what I did on an old Model T. I got a small plastic wading pool and I filled it with good clean solvent and I soaked my wheel in it. I spent a good amount of time turning and brushing (wire). Then, when I thought it was about a clean as I could get it, I dried it and let it sit for a week. Then I dumped it back into the pool only this time the pool was full of linseed oil. I was pretty pleased with the end result and even got a few compliments on the wheels. I don't know how bad you are "soaked" in but this was a bunch of work and time. I got this from an old mechanic and just followed his directions but I haven?t ever heard of another solution. Maybe a "new wheel"????

[Jan Arnett]

You didn't mention whether or not you are going to paint the wheels with a color or leave them natural. How you finish them will have a big bearing on what you can do to seal the wood. I am not sure whether you are trying to remove a stain or you are afraid that the final finish will not stick. Your suggestion to use a solvent to break down the oil is a good one but remember that as the oil is being broken down it will go further into the grain at the same time that it is being removed. If it is a stain then you are trying to remove the dirt that was carried in the oil. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />If you are going to put a linseed finish on the wheel this is not a problem. The linseed oil and the motor oil are probably compatible. If you ae going to put a varnish on the wheels use a oil base spar varnish designed for marine applications. This will have a high UV protection built into it and the oils should be miscible. If you are going to color the wheels use a wood sealer (zar) to seal the wood then use a wood filler to fill the pores, then a urathane primer prior to painting.

[wattslm]

Thanks, Guys! I aquired this '20 Touring 7 yrs ago from a guy who had scraped the original paint off the wheels 30 yrs before and then started driving the car without refinishing the wheels. Over the years, all the wheels got some grease stains but one rear got a lot of oil from the rear end. On the advice of a local paint store owner (with many yrs experience, and that doesn't mean he's right), I built a trough, lined it with plastic and soaked the wheel in JASCO paint stripper for about 5 hours. A lot of oil floated to the surface. Then I cleaned off the stripper and washed the wheel with TSP (trisodium-phosphate) and hot water and set the wheel by my wood stove to dry. 15 min later oil was running down a couple of spokes that were particularly bad. So, I repeated the process, and, after the second wash with TSP, the surface seamed dry to the touch. The other 3 wheels were only washed with TSP. I have since sanded the wheels, filled crackes and gouges with a stainable filler and appled a light oak oil based stain to increase uniformity of color. Two wheels have the first coat of spar varnish and don't look bad. The test will be whether or not it sticks.