Painting the stock rims
 

i have a set of stock FD rims coming to me next week. i wanted to paint them black, does anyone know good steps in doing this, and good products. im going to paint them black.

powder coating?

Powdercoat them, paint will come off eventually. If you must paint them Duplicolor sells some wheel paint in several colors. Make sure you clean the wheels real well and scuff them up a bit with some find sandpaper or scotchbrite pad so the paint sticks.

I painted mine with some really cool paint. It is just rattle can, but it turned out really nice. Its like rust oleum metallic. I just cleaned the rims really really good with laquer thinner, then masked off the tires, and sprayed like 6 coats on each rim. Heres a pic of it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../3PICT0011.jpg

I think I saw once where a guy stripped/painted with the tires in place - he jammed index cards between the tire and rim and did the stripping w aircraft stripper.

As with any rattle-can job, the right paint (Duplicolor wheel paint works great), good surface prep, and painting on a nice dry day with many thin coats works best. A finish coat of clear coat is optional.

Dave

i did a semi write up at one point a while ago on most of the stuff. i'll try to get some more closer up pics but in my avatar u can see my wheels have a polished lip and black spokes. this is a hard route but im happy with the results. it really depends on what u intend on doing. are you just painting them? do u want a polished lip? do u want it smooth? the stock rims metal is rough, so know that when u use a paint stripper once the paint is off, its not a smooth surface. this requires a hell of a lot of sanding. stripping the paint does however get rid of one less thing u have to sand if you are going to. if not like guys said before, duplicolor have some spray paints. use high heat paints when u do all of this though. use a couple coats of primer, a few coats of your desired color and i would recommend a coat or two of clear. if you want nice glossy results, take your time on adding more coats of the color you are going to use. once you get the clear down, let u cure for a few days. come back w/ some 1500 or 2000 grit sandpaper and bugg it, to give u a nice finish. hope this helps

Just to chime in.. The Rustoleum Metallic is great paint. Covers great and goes on easy. I played with the silver version for my saab wheels. If you happen to want to paint them gloss black, swing by the Depot and look for Appliance Epoxy in a rattle can. It's much tougher than spray paint.. limited in colors but black looks good. I've painted some jeep parts with this stuff. It's tough as nails.

I'd also think about picking up a small can of "Glisten PC" from POR-15. It's a tough-as-nails coating that you can brush on for $27 and will help the paint resist rock chips and fading.

..Dave