Painting your own rims at home
 

Originally posted by *jj2ii3344*
** I am not responsible for any damage this might cause to your vehicle, either directly or indirectly **

Painting your own rims at home without using Aircraft Stripper

Applicable to: Any alloy wheels
Difficulty: 2.5/5 - Moderate

Tools you need

- 1 Can of Duplicolor High Performance Wheel Paint Clear Coat
- 1 Can of Dupicolor Sandable Primer
- 4 Cans of Dupicolor High Performance Wheel Paint
- 400, 600 grit sand paper
- Dish washer
- Prepsol
- Towels
- Newspapers
- Masking Paper
- Index cards

Instructions

1. Clean your rims thoroughly with dish washer to remove wax/dirt from the surface
2. Begin wetsanding your rims with 400 grit sandpaper to prepare the surface for paint and to level the surface
3. Once the surface is relatively smooth and imperfection-free, move on to 600 grit sandpaper and repeat steps above

Note: If your rims has any scratches etc, it is important that you fix them now through sanding/bondo. The primer and especially the paint will not cover these defects for you.
http://www.appwalk.com/pubimg/1.jpg
http://www.appwalk.com/pubimg/2.jpg
for a super low price, but the finish was very very bad on it)

4. Clean the rims again with dish washer to remove dirt
5. Wipe your rims with prepsol to remove any leftover wax etc. (this step is not necessary)
6. Let rims dry completely
7. Put newspapers on the floor and place your rims on the newspapers to prevent spraying color on the floor
8. Put masking tape over any areas you do not want to paint (eg. rims logo etc.)
9. Put index cards over the circumference of the rims to protect the tires from being painted
http://www.appwalk.com/pubimg/3.jpg
10. Spray a light coat of primer on the rims, wait 10 minutes and repeat until rims are covered with primer, then wait 10 minutes or until primer is dry
http://www.appwalk.com/pubimg/4.jpg
11. Spray a light coat of wheel paint on the rims, wait 7 minutes and repeat until rims are covered with color, then wait 1 hour before putting on clear coat (the Duplicolor wheel paint is different than the company's regular automotive paint, it is mixed with a metallic and is harder to control IMO)
http://www.appwalk.com/pubimg/5.jpg
http://www.appwalk.com/pubimg/6.jpg
12. Spray a light coat of clear coat on the rims, wait 10 minutes and repeat until you have around 2-3 coats.
http://www.appwalk.com/pubimg/9.jpg

dude, can you do same with chrome lip on the rims? cuz my deep dish not so shiny anymore

can u use a sander? to level da surface..

that u cant paint, cause its chrome polished, so wat u do to that part is that u want to wed sand that with like a 1000,1500,2000. and then u have to polish it with polishing compound with a piece of rag or something. its hard to do but if u love ur rims then why not.

i will be doing this soon, gona fix the curb rash on my new 17's, and paint them black to go with the new ITR yellow paint job that my coupe is getting soon, here are the beasts. don't look to bad, but i can guarantee they will look 1000 times better in black.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g9...3/PICT0106.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g9...3/PICT0107.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g9...3/PICT0108.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g9...3/PICT0112.jpg

rims are not on the civic right now, im rockin some black 15' steelies till i get the rims done.

ill be sure to update pix when there done.

You need to drop it.^

Awsome job, they look really good

great write up, i was actually thinking about repainting my rims over the winter, very useful, thanks :)

Im wondering what kind of product you could use to fill in minore chips, scratches and curb damage. I have a set of wheels I was thinking of re-finishing but they do have some minor wear-and-tear damage.

i would assume filling them with bondo, sand, prime and sand again... thats what i'm planning to do on two of my rims, since they have some damage on the spokes

Kojima how much wheel gap do you have with your 17's on?

I would assume rims go through alot more abuse and vibrations then the body of your vehicle, therefore bondo may fix it for a bit, but i wouldnt expect it to last long.

I wouldnt use bondo!.

is there a special bondo like material for rims? if so what is it?

... Bondo is pretty strong on it's own, but is there any sort of special Bondo like material for rims?

What about something like JB Weld?

was thinking the same thing... the Bondo won't hold up, but something like liquid metal or JB would probably work. I'm gonna be painting my rims this winter as well.

Great write up

I'm going to try and do my rims in the next couple weeks too. They arent that bad, I'm going to use Bondo, cause I mean that stuff is still pretty strong, easy to work with and I have some sitting at home. Plus, the curb rash isn't that bad, so it'll just be a skim coat anyways.

ok i would never use bondo on rims...will not hold up. i just redid my accord exr rims ...best thing for curb rash if it is not insane is to take some 40 grit to it and smooth it out if you can and if you have clear coat on your rims take an air die grinder with a brown buffing pad and take the clear off down to the finish or bare metal....not necessary if you do not have any clear chipping off majorly or pitting in the rims...which by the sounds of it most of you do not have
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...t/IMG_0687.jpg
before
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...t/IMG_0685.jpg
half way
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...t/IMG_0804.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...t/IMG_0803.jpg
finished

hey can someone tell me how to get the "polished" lip look? was thinkin of painting rims gunmetal with a polished lip...for those who have done it, what did you do? sand the entire rim down like normal...what did you do to make the lip "shine"?