Okay. so i bought these 17 inch racing hart rims that is specifically made for the mazda speed version of the miata. its 4x100 so i bought them right off the bat. Made some adjustments and they are sitting nicely on my civic.
The problem i had was the mazda center cap. Obviously i cant flex mazda driving a civic so i looked all over for a honda or even RH center cap in the internet with no luck. I was searching the internet for possible solution and found
Honda-Tech.com: Wheel and Tire: FAQ: Centercaps
I made some adjustments to it and made my own center caps.
Here is a step by step instruction for those who do not want to pay a forture on plastic center caps and want to make a custom center cap.
The tools needed for this procedure is brasso, microfiber cloth, knock out plugs ( you can use different varitety of sizes. measure your surface with a ruler and look for it at you local home depot, lowes, or some place that specializes in electrical and plumbing.) and a wrench or some kind to bend and adjust the tabs to fit the rims
the original mazda center cap that i cant use. and 2 inch knock out plug that i bought from a electrical & plumbing hardware store called dover and cheek.
Now shine the surfaces using little bit of brasso and the microfiber cloth
Its a good idea to do this on a completely flat smooth surface for even polish. put the face of the knock out plug and rub it on the microfiber
After you finish it should look like this.
the top ones are the ones that havent been worked upon
and the bottom ones are the ones i just polished
You can even get a mirror shine but in order to achieve mirror chrome shine you must spend a considerable amout of time and some serious elbow grease. if you have a rotary tool then it will be smart to use it. I shined mine to a certain point to match the rest of my rim.
The best thing about this project is the fact that it is easy. and that it is really cheap. I bought each knock out plugs for .74 each.
If you lose them or if someone decides to steal your plugs you can simply replace them. Hope this has been a help to some of you that do not want to spend a fortune on your center caps.
You can also spray paint it. it is up to your imagination from here.
before
after
Some finished pictures
1/27/07 WATER MARKS ON CENTERCAPS!
Okay so its been about 2 weeks since i posted the thread on polished centercaps.
Unfortunately the centercaps started getting water marks on them. I should have realize that noncoated centercaps are suceptible to rust and watermarks XT
Well I decided to take those back out and spray paint it with dupont gunmetal spray. here are the results.
OKay these are the centercaps with watermarks on them. yes i know not so pretty.
Center caps with Dupont Gunmetal
On the Rims
GLuck