After finally getting the car home and cleaned up I was happy for a few weeks. I decided I needed to get some center caps for the wheels. There is nothing I hate more than a great looking car with a fantastic set of wheels only to have ugly rusty holes in the center of them.
The only thing I knew about the wheels at this point was that there was a stamp on the inside of the rim that reads "Doall". I then decided I was going to try and find a set of Honda center caps to place in the centers of the wheels. I tried the center caps ouf of my Fit and to my surprise they were incredibly close to fitting. They would need to be modified a bit so they could fit into the wheel, but I thought I could do it. I took lots of pictures, took some measurements, and made a post in my regional section looking for advice on how and where to have them modified. About 30 minutes later, out of sheer boredom I decided to do some more research and see if I could figure out what the wheels I have were.
I had managed to find Doall's site before but they had nothing on the wheels. I had looked multiple times before and I could never find anything other than the Doall site. I don't remember what the hell I put into Google but some how I hit the nail on the head and got exactly what I was looking for this time. Turns out the wheels were made by Doall for Tanabe and are the Precedeo model.
I guess Tababe has a Precedeo line of parts in the early 90's, (someone correct me if I am wrong), and it looks like these wheeels were part of that line. From everything I have read there are very very few sets of these wheels that were ever imported, and most of them are front wheel drive Honda offsets. After finally figuring out what the wheels were I was finally able to find pictures of the wheels which also happened to have pictures of the center caps. From the very first picture of the center caps I saw, I knew I absolutely had to have a set. I was able to track down a second set of the wheels, and much to my dismay the guy would not part the center caps. So I either had to buy the entire set of wheels for some center caps or keep looking. My impulses got the better of me and I pulled the trigger on the wheels. I was extremely excited... until the wheel and caps showed up to my door.
They caps and wheels were in far far worse condition that the seller had led me to believe. I decided I couldn't really do any harm to the caps by attempting to refinish them, so I headed to the store and bought a ton of sand paper and got to work.
Here are the caps as I received them:
There was some sort of black substance all over the caps and I couldn't figure out how to get it off. Even after soaking the caps in some commercial grade solvents it wouldn't come off. But the paint on the caps started to. :(
After this I gave up and decided to just got for it. I soaked the caps in paint stripper and started sanding.
After several hours I got the first cap to where I wanted. I was so anxious to get one done so I could see how it looked. Here is a quick comparison of two caps at this point.
After I finished the first one I wanted to try some things with repainting the letters and the recessed areas of the caps. I got to work and over the next few days I ended up with these final results.
Overall I am very very happy with the way the caps turned out. I test fit one into one of the extra wheels I have sitting in the garage and this is the result.
As far as I'm concerned the finished caps look amazing. I was even lucky enough to find the perfect rubber gaskets to replace the old and worn gaskets that came with the caps. Lowes plumbing section rules!
Hopefully by the end of this weekend I will have another round of shots with the caps on the car. The only problem I have now is that I am absolutely terrified of driving around with the caps in and loosing one of them
Almost forgot, as requested here are the specs of the current set of wheels.
Wheel Specs:
Doall - Tanabae Precedeos
17x8.5 +39 Front
17x9.5 +39 Rear
Unfortunately now I also have a set of these wheels in 17x7 +51 (I believe) all around sitting in boxes in my garage. I need to figure out what I am going to do with these.
I should have some more pictures of the car with these this weekend, and I should have a handful of additional parts to go on the car next week.
Let me know what you guys think
- Feezy
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