I just recently got my driving privileges taken away from my by the state of maryland for about a week or so...and i thought since i can't drive my car right now i'll do something to it that would have been a pain to do if i were to be driving the car everyday...So i decided that im going to paint my stock wheels gunmetal...Me and a couple of friends painted my friend mike's SI wheels..taping off the outside so he has a gunmetal center with a nice shiny lip too. Im probably going to paint the whole wheel gunmetal on mine...just because it would be too hard to actually tape off a section to make a nice looking lip...When we painted my friends, we wet sanded the clear finish on the wheels, then taped, then applied two coats of gunmetal and two coats of clear...the wheels came out REALLY good...i have to admit i was impressed with the job we did...but it wasn'y as smooth as i would like mine to be...i understand that they will never turn out as good as they would if i sent them out to get them powder coated, but i would still want them to look real nice...any suggestions, would you do anything different....All input greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Curt

 

Hmm --

Maybe wetsand them as they are now to make them smooth, and possibly do another coat, then a couple/few clear coats on top. Treat them basically the same as painting the car body itself; paint is paint, after all.

 

So i started my project tonight..and all didn't go as planned...i went out and bought that air craft paint stripper and it worked pretty good..it took of the clear coat and started working on the silver paint....just to see how deep the paint really was i wet sanded one spoke and apparently there is a primer under the silver paint...so im gonna go back to the auto parts store tomarrow and do another coat of the stripper...and whatever is left after this time, im gonna wet sand off
THIS IS TURNING INTO A BIGGER PROJECT THAN I THOUGHT!!!!
Curt
P.S. - is it absolutly necesary to get everything down to the aluminum...or can i leave some of the gery pimer on!!!

 

leave the primer.. becuz if you want your paint job to come out good.. your going to have to primer under your painting anyways.. your not supposed to just sand, tape, paint, then clear coat.. you forgot to primer.. you have to primer your wheels...

 

i hope you're not going to ruin type-s wheels

 

post pics of how its going so far

 

No...im def gonna primer them...i already bought the primer...i just want to get all of the wheels down to the bare metal first....idk, i kinda have OCD so i like things to be perfect!!

 

So how do i post images???

 

So how do i post images??? [IMG][/IMG]

 

first of all if your painting the bare metal, (alluminum) you need to make sure it is a self-etching primer or they will chip.

Landon

 

Really?....cuz i used the air craft again and it took all of the paint of but its not the aluminum...well its not luterious like the aluminum SI Wheels...im just gonna sand prime, sand, and paint

 

my point is if you dont use self etching primer on aluminum, paint wont stick to it.

Landon

 

OK well i painted the wheels today and they look great...someone post directions on how to post pictures and i will put up some pics of the before after!

 

One of the finished wheels!!

 

they look good, check back in a couple of months of driving and well see how well the paint is holding up.

Landon

 

Will do...i accidently put a small chip in one of them already when i was puttin them back on, the lug wrench fell and tapped it...but its not noticeable at all

 

looks pretty good man, post pics when you put them on ur car, but the center caps create a sharp contrast