Originally posted November 23, 2003:

just to let you guys know, the Duplicolor wheel paint gets an enthusiastic thumbs up. It's a great DIY refinishing for wheels.

when my car was in an accident last year, 2 of the rims got chunks taken out of them, and another one was curbed a bit, so when i re-mounted them with my studded-snow tires, i decided to paint them flat black to help hide the damage. bad move. the flat black looked terrible, and it let dirt and mud stick to the finish (or lack-there-of).

this year i went with this new 2-part wheel paint in gunmetal. worlds better. it looks, feels, and is holding up (month and a half so far) just like factory finish. the clear coat needs to be applied between 15 and 60 minutes of the last coat of color, and it atually bonds to the paint. i wiped a drip of clear off my mask, and it had turned gunmetal-ish even when sprayed on dry paint.

i may even have to refinish my rims in the silver before the spring.





Update as of spring 2004: after a winter of brutal snow, ice and salt, the paint held up about 90%. There was a few niks and scratches, but then again, I was putting it through some serious conditions. Overall, I'd do it again. laugh.gif

 

quick question, did you have your tires on while doing the paint and if so what did you use for masking?

 

I did have the tires mounted (but the wheels were off the car), and I used a piece of chipboard/cardboard with a curve cut in it. The curve was much wider than the curve of the rim, so I kinda "rocked" it around the tire with one hand while spraying with the other. I was careful, but I really didn't care too much if it got on the tire... the overspray that DID get on the tire came off in a couple weeks. My main concern was to get rid of the flat black paint that I had used on the wheels the previous winter (which looked like @ss).

 

dammit i wish i could have found out about this a few days ago, i just bought some flat black krylon paint (like in SCC) and clear coat

 

so you painted the rims w/ the wheel weights on??

you realize when the tires are replaced, the weights will be in different spots. lol

 

Easy fix, take the weights off, paint the wheels, put the weights back on. Put a chalk mark on the tire where the weight goes, or get the wheels rebalanced after painting.

 

I know I know... I saw that when I painted them. I'm fine with that though. Being that they are winter wheels, they can look as crappy as, well, crap. They will be covered in salt, dirt and sh!t anyway.

Col, I'm still trying to get the paint to you. The UPS store is open during the hours I work m-f... so I'm gonna see if they're open saturday (tomorrow)... I never knew sending spray paint overseas was such a big deal!

Hopefully this year my tib can be garaged. Two mechanics are looking for winter beaters with a heater for me right now. Either a truck with big tires (like my gf's '99 Trooper), or any old car with 4x114.3 lug pattern to put my gunmetal hyundai rims with studded snow tires on. The question is, if a beater is found that fits the hyundai wheels, and it's not a hyundai, do I remove the crooked H center cap? I'd hate to end up on some other forum saying, look at this car with the hyundai wheels! j/k :roll:

 

just a quick question to phorq. how many cans did it take to do all 4 rims?

 

I would advise getting 2 cans of paint and 2 cans of clear. You'll probably have some clear left over, but I don't think you could do 4 rims all over with any less. I only did the faces of my wheels, leaving the inside lip flat black from the previous year, using all of one can of paint, and most of one can of clear. (It's completely un-noticable this way on my car... but going from silver to black, that would be very noticable.)

 

I should be alrighr, I bought 4 cans of paint and 4 of clear.