Alpina and Borrani (CMR) 13” Steel Rims

[BritshIron]

Oops, picture disappeared from my post above. Mea culpa! Note these early Borrani wheels were "hub centric" for the front wheels--you can't get a piece of paper between the wheel center hole and the front hub. I ruined one wheel center cap by trying to "wish it to fit"--note the bulge at the hub after the lugs were tightened. I had to have my chrome hub center caps machined to fit the two front Borrani wheel centers to get them to fit. The rear Borrani wheels were not hub centric, so the center caps fit fine. Mahalo. Robert

[Conserv]

13 hours ago, zinz said:

Here’s a pic of one of mine from earlier in this thread. Flat, grey, no metallic. 
 

 

Ed Z

 

Just as a note, I’m not convinced that the factory painted Alpina and Borrani steelies with the same paints — although they were both clearly manufactured by the same firm, CMR.

 

Alpina steelies, even those manufactured by Lemmerz (the 14” NK rims), seemed to have generally been delivered in silver paint. Borrani steelies were generally delivered in their distinctive gray-beige (earlier) or black (late), although I believe I have seen a few that appeared to be originally silver.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

[Markster]

3 hours ago, BritshIron said:

Oops, picture disappeared from my post above. Mea culpa! Note these early Borrani wheels were "hub centric" for the front wheels--you can't get a piece of paper between the wheel center hole and the front hub. I ruined one wheel center cap by trying to "wish it to fit"--note the bulge at the hub after the lugs were tightened. I had to have my chrome hub center caps machined to fit the two front Borrani wheel centers to get them to fit. The rear Borrani wheels were not hub centric, so the center caps fit fine. Mahalo. Robert

I pressed my new caps on - since they are brass it went well.  Wheel fit right over. 
 

I don’t have them assembled but I think you get the idea. 
 

 

[quant]

On 12/22/2021 at 6:53 PM, 1dollar93 said:

I've seen a few threads here and there, as well as a few posts on this thread regarding the "correct" Borrani grey-beige paint. I'm going to refinish my set and I'm ultimately going to go with what I think looks best against my colorado/primer car, but I wanted to contribute to the conversation.

 

 

 

Again, thank you to those who contributed photos to this thread, as many of these photos were culled from within. I would like to get close to deciphering why there are so many different greys, and more importantly, narrowing down to the ultimate Borrani grey/beige paint code. Attached for your consideration are a couple photos of my "pimp hand" gold wheels with multiple different paint chips for choice. These photos were taken in cloudy conditions, so they may differ from the above photos. What do we think?

 

 

 

So for the CMR Alpina the most specific guidance on 'the right colour' is Alpina-A0's feedback:

 

Sprayed (not powdercoated) in RAL 9006 "Weißaluminium" with a semi-matte finish (called "Seidenmatt" in german).

 

 

For the early CMR Borrani wheels with the 'grey-beige paint', does somebody know what the most accurate colour specification is, one could hand over to the wheel / spray shop ?

[1dollar93]

6 hours ago, quant said:

 

So for the CMR Alpina the most specific guidance on 'the right colour' is Alpina-A0's feedback:

 

Sprayed (not powdercoated) in RAL 9006 "Weißaluminium" with a semi-matte finish (called "Seidenmatt" in german).

 

 

For the early CMR Borrani wheels with the 'grey-beige paint', does somebody know what the most accurate colour specification is, one could hand over to the wheel / spray shop ?

This is my quest as well. I have a handful of paint chips that I think are close, but I’m most likely going to go with RAL 7042. I’ve got a post a few pages back with a bunch of colors.

[quant]

That was indeed your post which I quote @$1.93

 

But given that I'm lazy, I was hoping that in the meantime somebody was able to pinpoint the exact colour from the range of options ?

[1dollar93]

You don’t want to agonize over a shade of grey from 50 years ago? Isn’t that half the fun??

[Conserv]

Sorry to spoil all the fun, but I don’t believe there were single exact colors in which all the Alpina steelies, or all the Borrani steelies, were painted. Just as with the BMW factory’s treatment of chassis and subframe painting, the correct color was actually a range of colors — with ranges of varying sizes for various components.

I believe that we, as car “restorers”, are far greater “perfectionists” than car and car part manufacturers in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The fit and finish of my first ‘02, my ‘70, was definitely better than my father’s ‘70 Chrysler New Yorker. But compared to modern vehicles, the finishes on a 1970 BMW were absolutely crap! Standards were wholly different.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

[quant]

I would already be happy to have a 'period correct feeling'-range of colours to choose from.

 

$1.93 is converging to RAL 7042; interesting to learn more insights and opinions.

Edited February 14, 2022 by quant

[quant]

On 2/12/2022 at 10:52 AM, Alpina-A0 said:

When I had my set of Alpina Borranis respraied I took the inside of my spare-wheel (that had never been run before) as reference. I decided to go for RAL 9006 "Weißaluminium" then, and had them respraied (NOT Powdercoated) with a semi-matte finish (called "Seidenmatt" in german).

 

In the end, I went with this advise - RAL9006 'Weißaluminium' with a semi-matte finish - painted, not powder coated - for my set of five R1-440 CMR Alpina wheels:

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by quant

[quant]

And for the CMR Alpina data set - some measurements:

 

Wheel weights of the R1-440 rims (5.5J, date: 11/70) are between 6,700 and 6,770 grams

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by quant

[Conserv]

25 minutes ago, quant said:

And for the CMR Alpina data set - some measurements:

 

Wheel weights of the R1-440 rims (5.5J, date: 11/70) are between 6,700 and 6,770 grams

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you!

 

Another CMR "weight issue" -- apart from the sheer weight of the CMR steelies -- is variations in weight. I have not figured out how to handle this issue for the Wheels Database.

 

Whether Alpina or Borrani rims, I found CMR weights all over the board, for a given size and model. Hence, for instance, when I weighed my set of Model 440's, I chose to put 7.0 kilograms (15.4 lbs.) in the database.

 

I don't recall if 7.0 kg. represented the heaviest of my rims, the lightest of my rims, or an average of my rims. In a few Wheels Database entries, I actually inserted a weight range. But I'd have to guess that my rims probably failed to represent the heaviest or lightest examples produced. Thus, any weight range is probably not the true weight range.

 

Here's that entry for the Model 440's.

 

 

By the way, your rims look fabulous. I find high-gloss steel rims of the 1970's objectionable because they make the rims flashier than they were intended to be.

 

Thanks and best regards,

 

Steve

 

 

[quant]

In a distant past I studied applied mathematics at university, and I recall that 'normally', when faced with a data set with scattered data and you want to present this in a simple format, you show (at least) the first two 'moments', i.e. the mean and standard deviation (actually variance, but that one is less intuitive).

 

Would be interesting to see those two 'moments' of your collected data sets (as well as the n of your data set).

 

And if you want to go 'all the way', then you can always make a box plot in Excel and paste it as image here (just let me know if you appreciate some help there)

[NickVyse]

BTW, in case it's not been mentioned elsewhere in the thread, borranis fit over vented disks on tii struts - not too many 13" wheels do.

 

 

 

 

[quant]

16 minutes ago, Conserv said:

Another CMR "weight issue" -- apart from the sheer weight of the CMR steelies -- is variations in weight. I have not figured out how to handle this issue for the Wheels Database

 

 

One perspective to add - I did have the wheels sand blasted to remove some rust; you can see that some of the outer edges are quite 'pockmarked' (not sure if that is a proper English saying for this, but I guess it doesn't get lost in translation).

 

Perhaps (some of) the weight difference may be explained by the amount of (rusted) metal removed with blasting; however - that can never be 300 grams per wheel

Edited April 27, 2022 by quant