Crow Horse

My wife's WJ's stock aluminum rims are badly corroded and I'm considering painting them black. I've searched here and came up empty. Any helpful hints from those who have done this? From what I've come up with from other sites, I should give them a real good sanding (looks like my DA could make short order of most of this), prime then paint. Specifically, what grit paper should be used and what kind of primer? Actually, any info would be helpful.... Thanks....

stomper27

I actually just used a 3" wire round brush drill bit and gave them a good scrubbing. If you use paper I would use a course grit for scraping metal.

- a lot of people will tape the tire and use newspaper to protect from overspray. I found it MUCH easier to use 3x5 index cards to just stick in between the tire and rim, and just a little bit of newspaper - quicker and less taping to do

- another cool trick is to coat whatever you don't want painted with vasoline. I painted a brush guard and just covered all the rubber with vasoline and just primered/painted. Once it was dry I hosed off the vasoline and it even came out looking like new rubber. Lol.

stomper27

Oh and I sanded, primer, painted, then sprayed clear coat. I sprayed the clear coat on the rims while the paint was still wet. When it dries it gives it a "spider web" texture type of look. Don't know if you can tell from the pics, I'm on my phone.

Crow Horse

Did you use a self etching primer?

stomper27

From Lowes. Rustoleum Auto Primer.

Crow Horse

Last week I painted the steelies on my XJ using Krylon primer and gloss black. Came out pretty good but aluminum is a horse of a different order (I'm told)....

Crow Horse

Would using a DA be too aggressive if I used a 220?

cdawall

bedliner works great the rustoleum stuff works better without priming just btw.

stomper27

No not at all. Probably only need 1 minute on each wheel.

retread

the finer the paper the better, start coarse and then fine/
talk paint with napa,an epoxy primer is good there's also a primer for aluminum in a spay bomb I've used

JeepFaced

I dont know if anyone ever thinks of this, but you can take your wheels to your local High School Mechanic Shop and have them sandblast them for free. You dont even need to take the tires off the Jeep, they will do all that for you, free of charge, while you gab it up about old times with the Shop teacher. You just need to make an "appointment" in advance.

Beer helps too. (for the teacher, not the kids!)