Hey all.

Recently I got disgusted at looking at my wheels. They were starting to corrode where the wheel weights had been, and I just couldn't have that. After deciding that buying new wheels and tires was out of my budget, I decided to paint them.

I uploaded all my pictures to photobucket for reference.

I Used a self etching primer first, 3 coats. Then 3 coats of black Duplicolor wheel paint, then 3 coats of wheel paint clear. Its been about a month now, and they seem to be holding up, with no obvious signs of wear.

Removing the tires from the car definitely help the project move along, although I suppose it is possible to do without removing the tires from the car. I started out by cleaning them real good, with wheel cleaner (I used Eagle One wheel cleaner), a brush, and some scrub pads (both green and maroon). I couldn't get the inside of the wheel completely clean, but it was much better than what I started with, and I wasn't going to be painting that part anyway.

I then made an error. I polished the interior part of the sections of the wheel, since I was going to leave that silver (I'm talking about the parts that get taped up in the pictures). I used the Black Magic bullet, and it did do a good job. The error became apparent when I tried to tape up the sections. I had 4 varieties of painters tape, found that only 1 would stick, and that didn't stick all that well. So, I removed the polish I just put on with some rubbing alcohol and a rag, and I was able to get the tape to stick enough, although still not well. I also taped the the very center of the wheel. Unfortunately I don't have a good picture of exactly where I made my paint line, but it was on the most protruding part of the center, or where the covers clip past (I know horrible description). Finally, I taped the tires themselves to keep the paint on them to a minimum. I also had trouble getting tape to stick to the rubber, but I blame armor-all for that, duct-tape and newspaper worked well enough though. I used a razor blade held parallel to the spoke to cut the excess tape from the sections.

I then sanded the parts without tape, or the main part of the spokes. This roughed up the surface so the paint could stick, and also removed a little bit more of the excess tape.

After sanding, I sprayed on the primer, 3 coats with time to dry in between (10 minutes iirc, check the can if you're doing this). After the primer I sprayed on 3 coats of the black wheel paint, with some drying time in between, then 3 coats of clear, with time in between. Everything went smoothly, except the clear went on cloudy and freaked me out because I thought I'd have to do all this again. I let it dry, and the cloudy went away. See the pics (link above).

I then carefully removed the tape and put them back on the car. They had dried overnight by this time, and I wanted to protect all my work, so I put some wax on them (eagle one nanowax). I wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not, but it doesn't seem to have had any bad effects, so I guess its fine. It didn't really help with brake dust though....

Take a look at the pictures, let me know what you think. Hopefully I helped someone out that was thinking about the same thing. I hope I didn't break the forum rules by posting links to products, but I really like when people make it easy for me to find things when I'm looking at stuff, so I thought I'd do that favor for someone.

I'm not really sure how long the paint will last, but for my purposes, I want it to last a year or two until I'm outta college and making money, then its time for some real wheels!

Edit: BTW, I took all those pictures with my phone (n900), so the quality may not be the greatest, but it seemed pretty good.

 

those look nice! i plan on painting my stockers soon because theyre terrible but not sure what to do yet. good job.

 

That's a great look for those wheels! Nice job!

 

i've been wanting to do something like this with my wheels forever now. How long did this take you?

 

It took me about 2 days. I didn't think it would take that long, but taping the parts I didn't was painted took the longest. If you just paint the entire thing, it will take a lot less time.

 

Those came out looking very nice! Great job.

 

Very different, VERY cool looking. That really gives your car a cool look to it. Good job man!!

 

I wish I woulda done that to my rims lol

 

Nice!!! But I would have just sent them off to a powder coating place, they wouldn't charge too much for something like that....Good job though...

 

Good looks! I did this in flat black with my Explorer which I owned before the Monte Carlo, left the hub caps chrome, gave it a distinct look that your car now has. Was wondering if it would look good doing this (but the entire wheel no taping off the insides) on my white MC.

Thanks for the photobucket pics and the step by step instructions