How do I make Smooth wheel covers for alloy wheels?

[mada88]

Hello,

Apologises if this thread has been posted before.

I am wanting to put moon caps on my car. I have looked into buying though they are expensive. I would love to know how to make them myself my rewarding and satisfying. How would i do it? I would like to make them out of plastic as plastic is lighter than metal.

Old wheel trims would be good however I need smooth ones and I need to figure out how to attach them to my alloy wheels.

Thanks for your help

[spacemanspif]

Most usually use store-bought pizza pans (for making pizza) on their wheels as the 16" pans fit most 15" steel wheels perfectly. Alloys are a little more difficult but most usually use pizza pans or coroplast zip-tied to the spokes.

[mada88]

Great advise thanks so I need 16 inch pizza pans cool I shall investigate.

I need to be able to take them off though so I can check the tyre pressure and also inflate the tyres hmmmm.

[Daox]

Coroplast and zip ties works well if you want to stick with plastic. Cut a hole for the valve stem or cut the zip ties to check your tire pressure every once in a while.

[elhigh]

I've been experimenting with bargain-basement alternatives on this exact issue.

I tried some shelf paper smoothies on my HCH and they did okay, but only for a week. Not much attachment, I made them just big enough to barely bridge the dished part of the wheel where the lugnuts are.

The second iteration came out much better. I made the discs, again from shelf paper so super-cheap, but much wider and with pie cuts to relieve stresses from wrapping over the edge and down onto the conical section of the wheel. Interestingly I expected the pie cuts to overlap a bit, instead they spread. It could be because I was adding a fair amount of tension to the paper to prevent fluttering.
[IMG]Honda Civic Hybrid wheels[1] by elhigh1, on Flickr[/IMG]

My younger boy went after the wheels on our '98 Forester, which has virtually no setback from the outer rim. There's just about no space there to land the grabbers for, for instance, traditional clip-in wheel covers. So he got the rest of the shelf paper and wrought this:
[IMG]Subaru Forester wheels by elhigh1, on Flickr[/IMG]

The original, minimalist discs on the Civic only lasted a week, these new ones have been hanging on for a month and still look good. Sweetie, trimming them out of the sheet, left the backing on where the paper bridges the dished part of the wheel, that may be helping. That may or may not have been an option on the Forester, I wasn't there when Son #2 did the work. I was so tickled to see it I just giggled. I admit it, I giggled.

[3dplane]

This is how I made it:
Smooth wheel covers - MirageForum.com

[spacemanspif]

Great job. I had no idea plastic was malleable enough to be shaped by an English wheel

[redneck]

Originally Posted by mada88

Great advise thanks so I need 16 inch pizza pans cool I shall investigate.

I need to be able to take them off though so I can check the tyre pressure and also inflate the tyres hmmmm.

.

Just measure and cut a hole. Then use valve stem extensions.





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[elhigh]

3dplane:
I just looked at your build thread at the Mirage site, nice work! Looks really slick.

I had no idea plastic would respond so well to an English wheel, that's really cool.

[freebeard]

Apologises if this thread has been posted before.

I am wanting to put moon caps on my car. I have looked into buying though they are expensive.

I got a set of Moon disks at a swap meet for $5, because the original 3 holes had turned into 3 notches. That's a lot less than pizza pans.

3dplane's post looks promising; Moon disks are made by doing essentially the same thing in a spiral. Is plastic really lighter than aluminum? People will point and laugh if you use long valve stem that poke through. The optimal method for removal would be Dzus fasteners.