I recently picked up a set of RAYS Volk Racing GR-N Wheels in a 13x4.5 +43 size for an amazing price… check this out… 12460¥ ($113 USD), shipped, off of Yahoo! Auctions. Effing genuine, forged RAYS Engineering, period-correct wheels in the absolute perfect kei car size for barely over $100 USD. That, my friends, is ridiculous. I’ve said Japan is a parts heaven before and I’ll state that again, unequivocally. To be fair, they are tiny, kei car-sized and not a particularly aggressive offset, at that. But as my planned winter set to replace my current ugly, but painted, steel wheels, they will suit that role quite well.

I knew when I bought them online they would be a bit shabby, have some paint corrosion, and have some curbing, but as long as they are round and not dented or cracked, I’m not worried; that is the most important aspect. When it arrived, I’ll admit I was quite surprised at the rough condition, a bit of spiderwebs, and… a new spider friend, who sadly, I quickly dispatched. Thanks, seller, you could’ve at least taken off the webs and spider before you shipped them off?

Yes, these are genuine wheels. Rays Engineering is stamped in the front and all four still have their original sizing sticker affixed to their backside. All made in Japan in 1992, the heyday of JDM kei car popularity, with the ABCs of kei cars.

Here are the wheels after a really brief spray down to remove the spider webs and loose dirt. The paint corrosion is fairly significant. As you can see from these dirty wheels, that there is a lot of paint bubbling and peeling. Although extremely sun faded, it is evident that the wheels were once gold at some distant point in their history. (Also included are the center caps, but those I’ll have to repair and install separately.) Thankfully they are round and the actual lips have little to no curbing at the lip. Surprising, for such old wheels. But the spokes do stick out a bit, hence a little curbing along the spoke faces.

First step, let’s get off all the rough stuff, shall we? At least the wheels didn’t come with tires, as that these following steps would be a lot more... tiresome. Heh heh heh.

The first step in this process is a bit of elbow grease and a lot of 100 grit mesh sandpaper. I first chipped away at any major peeling paint, removing major spots that I need to be aware of when I start sanding. And there was a lot of sanding.

Ok, not too bad at all. The corrosion doesn’t seem to go deeply into the metal and remains only at the surface, eating at the paint. As long as I can smooth the surface and prevent further deterioration, the surface as it looks now will hopefully be mostly blended in when the paint comes.

After just the first two wheels, I really wish I had a media blaster to strip off the paint much easier. This is definitely taking a lot longer than I anticipated, given all the spokes and varying surfaces of the wheels. This one wheel alone took a little more than 2 hours to get to this stage. Thankfully, I started at the worst wheel, so it should theoretically get easier from here.

After much deliberation between gunmetal, gold, and bronze, I settled on returning the wheels back to a shade of gold they once were a long time ago. I’ll see how it looks after the first layer if I’m gonna stick with my choice.

The wheels were scuffed up with all the sanding I’ve done, allowing paint to adhere. However, to promote a stronger bond, I first layered the wheels with a few thin coats of primer. Using primer improves the ability for the outer layers of paint to stick and adhere much better. I typically don’t use primer in most of my previous painting jobs, as it isn’t necessary in all situations and for all materials, but I figure since these are quality wheels, they deserve better treatment.

After several hours of coats and re-coats, the first two wheels were painted. Looking at the finish again, there are several areas where the areas of chipped paint aren’t as smooth as I had hoped. You can see the border between “edge” of the original paint and the metal of the wheel distinctly in some of these shots. While it isn’t terrible, it’s far from perfect.

A few layers of gloss clear paint will really make the gold pop with a nice, deep shine. If only I had some replacement Volk Racing decals, it would look like-new again. But, alas, at 500￥ a piece, I couldn’t quite justify them since they look great now without them.

Time to move the rubber over from my winter set. Yeah, these Nexen Winguard tires might not be exactly the best performing winter tires, they will suffice for driving around town. I’m quite lucky that I live in an area where snowfall isn’t typically heavy, we usually only get a few inches of the fluff every year, so traversing through heavy winter ice or slush isn’t much of an issue.

With the help of my mechanic and the local gas station, we got the tires peeled off the steel wheels and the tires mounted over and balanced on the new wheels.

GORGEOUS.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the deal I got for the wheels. Unfortunately I had to spend about 3000￥ ($27 USD) in sanding materials and paint and the end product was not quite as great as I had hoped. Like the rest of the car, it looks nice at 20 feet away, but not great at 10. It will do as a winter set for now, but the next time I unmount these tires, I will redo the finish again.

Let’s hope these forged wheels will last another 26 years of use.