I've been meaning to refinish my wheel sfor ahiel since they had all sorts of corrosion, rust, and dirt caked on them. After many generous coats of carb cleaner, degreaser, and finally soem muriatic acid, I was able to get them paintable.

Two coats of Rustoleum primer, then a few coats of metal silver, and finished off with 3 coats of shiny laquer. The finish should be durable enough, and to purchase the supplies needed to do all 4 it was ~$25.

I didn't sand the surface down too well, so it's still a bit scuffed in places, but it still looks 100x better then before. Well worth the 4 hours it took. I still ahve the passenger side to do this weekend and I'll be set.

Here's how they looked before (very pitted, and the original finish was ruined):


Here's the end result. The laquer adds a nice wet look to it. The tires look so sloppy because I soaked them with tire treatment to make up for all the chemicals that washed over them today. Now that the treatment has dried, they look brand new.


Because I'm a bastard about doing things properly, I sprayed the back as well, even though you can't see it through the front side really:


I also had the chance to clean up my calipers and paint in the raised mazda on my calipers black, and finish up some small quarter panel fiberglass repair.

 

nice dude.. i like the shiney silver.. i was gonna do mine in black.. but this might change my mind

 

eh, which tire shop did you get your tires balanced last? our wheels require MC weights, not AW

or were they the TS's.... BAH, i forgot now.

looks good though!

 

Looks good!!! What kind of paint and cleaner did you use?

 

That's very nice work. It looks like a brand new wheel. Good job.

 

you pulled the weights off first right? maybe just some sticky weights when you rebal to keep them looking fresh

 

Not bad.. One a side not, that muriatic acid is nasty stuff. I used it once to clean out an old gas tank, and man...never again.

 

Yeah, if you don't wear a good breather, you're in big trouble. Once when I was younger and I was using it to remove some surface corrosion from a car, I learned the hard way. One whiff of that and you lose your ability to breath for a few seconds. Remember, it's hydro chloric acid basically, and chlorine is the devil for poor carbon based life forms.

As far as paint goes, I used rustoleum primers, the metallic rustoleum series (silver, they make alot of other nice metalics including cool hammered finishes), and then lots of rustoleum specialty laquer (can be foudn with the other stuff for the same price).