Painting rims advice?

[carlege]

Wheels:
Plans: Paint center Gun Metal Grey or black, Leaving lip aluminum or polishing. I might end up painting lip to cover some existing road rash

So far i have bought 400 grit sand paper
mineral spirits / acetone

Steps to prep?

Painting:?
I dont have access to a compressor or own a spray gun
Type of paint?
Clear coat or not?

[tharbert]

First, I spent a lot of time looking at rim threads to determine how I wanted to tackle my rims and the colors I wanted. This is a great thread to settle on your perfect color combo.

The first step is to get the old finish off. Normal paint stripper should help shift the current finish...that is unless it's powder coated. Don't forget the back side needs cleaning and refinishing too. I know mine did.

I polished the lips with course, medium then fine metal paste and an electric drill/buffing pad. Pastes and pads can be found at Lowes/Home Depot. I had a little rash that I cleaned up with sand paper and then the pastes. There are a few folks who use scotch bright pads to turn the polished lips to a matte finish. I chose to touch up with polish regularly rather than use clear coat as my rims are magnesium. Don't know about clear coating polished aluminum. Experts may chime in here.

After the lips were polished, I taped them off and used Rustoleum gray primer, satin black base with satin white pedals. The enamel cures to an extremely hard surface and shouldn't need a clear coat.

The key? Make sure the surfaces are meticulously cleaned before applying any paint.

There are a number of threads in the technical forum where folks described refinishing their rims along with lots of pics. I think I read rim threads for two weeks before I turned a lug nut.

No, not fuchs but period correct after market mags.

[carlege]

Thanks the wheels look good. Im leaning more torward the semi gloss black and not leaving the lip aluminum. I think the wheels will be tough to get stripped but i have alot of time