[alfa] Wheel paint

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In ad9-919, 921, and 922 Jeff Thraen, Andrew Watry, and Arno Leskinen discussed wheel colors on various Alfas from the late sixties and seventies, especially questions about spare wheels having been different colors than the other four, backsides of wheels different than frontsides, and the exposed surfaces different than the surfaces concealed by hubcaps. Others had recently discussed, for the umpteenth time, what is the correct silver-gray for Alfa wheels?
 
Memories can play tricks, but I am as sure as I could be that the three Alas I purchased new in that period  a 1967 Giulia Super, 1971 1750 GT Veloce, and 1972 2000 Berlina  all had all five wheels painted a single color, inside and outside, exposed surfaces and concealed surfaces. I still have ten of those fifteen wheels, none of them refinished, and as far as I can tell they all look about the same.
 
Logic would seem to support those impressions. Wheel rotation instructions for the 164, with a space-saver spare on an unmatched red wheel, require switching front to back only, keeping tires on their original sides with rotational directions unmixed. Wheel rotation instructions for the Milano, with a standard spare, require switching front to back only, keeping tires on their original sides with rotational directions unmixed, with the option of including the spare in a three-wheel sequence on the right side. Wheel rotation instructions for the 1600, 1750, and early 2000 cars have different rotation sequences for Michelin tires and Pirelli tires, but in both cases the spare appears periodically on the road front and rear, left and right, with the Pirelli sequence placing every wheel in every location at one time or another. The observed paint differences could have environmental causes, but I have no doubt that the logical production managers at Arese originally had all wheels painted the same color.
 
On the perennial question of what is the correct silver for wheels, in 1972 I ordered, from ARI in New Jersey (the American distribution subsidiary of the Milanese parent company) a batch of spares including quarts of paint for each of my cars and a quart for the wheels. The paint they sent for the wheels was Glassurit lacquer in AR 737, silver gray metallic. Still have the can, never opened, complete with the Alfa-badged spare parts label. I cant guarantee that it was correct, and even if I opened the can now it could have degraded in thirty years; all I can say with any certainty is that 737 is apparently what would have been used by the USA factory subsidiary to refinish a wheel that needed it on a near-new car in the early seventies. If some other shade, from some other source, looks better to your eyes, I can see no good reason not to use it.
 
Cheers
 
John H.
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