Rays Engineering SUPERVOLK - 14"

Rays Engineering, Super Volk.
14x6 +38
4x100
Tuesday the 8th of May, 1984.

Introduced 1984, and look to have won a 'Good Design Award' for Product Design in that first year.
Properly directional, and a cast-alloy hollow monocoque.. taking advantage of the hollow spokes with the tyre valve filling from the centre behind the cap.
Available in at least white and silver, and 14" to 16".

One of my favourites.
Bought these for the AW11 a couple months ago now. I'd actually not long bought a New Old Stock set of 15's, when I decided to chase down another set to actually use.
The small sizes aren't particularly valuable, so had the luxury of being picky enough to wait for a complete, straight set. The set above fit the bill nicely, despite looking like they had been under the ocean for a decade! 
YAJ Auction went through successfully, thanks to little interest. The snow tyres were stripped, then packed up and sent off to Australia...

...A couple weeks later.
The last 31years hadn't been too kind for these poor old wheels, but they had managed to stay impressively original..!

 Corrosion, and patina for days...

Original SUPER VOLK spoke decals..

Quickly set to getting them redone, as I had another lot of SSR faces coming and going from the powdercoater at the time.
The original barrel stickers were carefully removed, along with the caps and unique threaded valves.
Into the back of the car, and off to get a new coat.

While they were away, it was up to me to get the caps back to their former glory..

Sanding away plenty of scrapes and touchups. These plastic caps are very soft...

Small file used to clean up the gouging in the screwdriver area..!

Fresh paint..

A week later, a little Arts&crafts: repainting the original lettering with a small brush. The excess is quickly wiped away, before the whole thing is polished up..

Another week later; the whole cap is polished up, before an old toothbrush is used to clean the excess compound out of the lettering...

Done! Good enough for me!

Beside one of the original NOS caps, from the set I'd mentioned before. The repainted cap is on the left, and a brighter white to better match the refinished wheels...

 RAYS ENGINEERING. With one of the original Supervolk cap boxes..

Threaded valves, with their original Rays caps. A quick second spent scraping away old tape and junk..


Then excitedly off to the powdercoater to pick up the freshly blasted and recoated wheels..!

In the back of the 4Runner. Very happy with these...

Valves in, and caps on..
Refinished 14" on the left, with one of the original 15" wheels on the right.

Some quick pics before taking them off to get tyres fitted..

A little effort, and they're back to looking as sharp as they did decades ago. SUCH a great design.. unique, and technically interesting...

SUPER VOLK - its super!

ARTISAN SPIRIT
RAYS ENGINEERING

SUPER PROGRESSIVE

AERO WHEEL

MONOCOQUE
SUPER VOLK

Photo of one of the four hollow spokes. This runs all the way to the centre, with one tapped for the valve to fill through. Really novel..



NOW - onto the AW11...

I had bought a set of Eibach's to use, but was yet to organize new struts. More than a little impatient now though - so back went in the old coilovers!

Dug out the old NeoChro Project Kics R40's. Lovely colour.. only to be hidden by the cap.

Spotto the valve there...!


A couple inches lower, later; and...

Done!
Absolutely stoked with how it looks. Period perfect. The sizes are in no way aggressive, but just works well with the relatively-chunky 185/60 tyres..

White wheels and brakedust though eh? pah! Worth it for when they're clean - its sharp!





That's all for now. I'll get to posting a set of the Original 15's and their packaging too, eventually...