Installing moom discs on a G1 Insight

[cowmeat]

Finally had time to install the mirrored moon disc wheel covers today. Turned out awesome! When I pull them off next I'm going to strip the clear coat off, do a good buffing to get out some imperfections I noticed, and redo the clear coat.

Steps to do this mod in case anybody's interested (it was way easier than I feared it would be)

#1 - pull the wheel skirts and rims off, take the rims to your local tire place and have them unseat the bead on the front of the rims (I used a deck screw as a punch to mark dead center of the holes)

#2 - score a mark where the three screw holes will be on each rim, and mark the location of one of the holes on both the rim and the back of the wheel cover, and number both the rim and the wheel cover (I used a sharpie)

#3 - drill the three holes, and blow out any shavings from in between the rim and tire with compressed air

#4 - tap each hole (I used a #8 32 for these) and once again blow out any debris

#5 - take the rims back to the tire shop and have them re-seated and filled with air (they wouldn't go higher than 45 psi on mine, I had to up it a notch myself at home)

#6 - install the rims back on car, and tighten the lug nuts. At this point I also made sure I had the proper psi in all the tires, since it takes a bit to pull the wheel covers back off to add air

#7 - install the wheel covers - I used nylon washers behind the wheel covers and added a dab of red form-a-gasket in the holes so the screws won't back out, and #8 32 x 1/2" Phillips screws. The nylon washers spaced the discs off the rims about 3/16", and brought the screws flush with the back side of the rims. You do NOT want the screws to push into the tire bead!

#8- re-install the wheel skirts and enjoy the new look! Took about two hours altogether including four trips to the tire store, which is right down the street from my house. They charged me 3 bucks a rim to unseat and re-seat the tires.

***edit***
I missed one step that I did, which was to counter-sink the screws into the wheel covers by taking a drill bit the same size as the head of the screws and honing each hole on the wheel covers. I laid them flat on my work table and did this slowly with light pressure on the drill since this was a one-and-out process

[deejaaa]

for sure they look great! I'm partial to 'em now that I use a set.
few q's:
was the deck screw your punch?
where did you get them?
like aluminum, what is the approximate weight?
do you have TPMS? if not, how often will you check pressures now?
you are specific on which wheel/cover goes where, would it be better for future installers to use a template so covers could be installed any which way but loose?

[cowmeat]

Yeah, the deck screw was my punch to mark dead center of the holes, guess I could have explained that better, lol! I fixed it above.

I got them on eBay, after haggling with the guy for over six months until he dropped them to under 100 bucks with free shipping. My persistence paid off in the end. There was only one person watching the sale, and I think what finally made him cave was when I told him that person was me!

The four of them together weighed a couple of pounds, they're super light

I don't have TPMS, but these tires only lose 3 or 4 psi over a tank (2 and a half weeks), so for now I plan on airing them up every tank, which is what I do now anyway. In the future I'm considering installing valve extenders to point the valves to the inside of the rims, haven't made up my mind on that one yet.

The wheel covers came with the holes pre-drilled, and when I overlaid them the holes weren't identically spaced (but were real close), so it was easier to just mark a specific hole location on each rim and on the back of each wheel cover, and number-match them to each other.