CherokeeCountry

I want to paint these white. I hate how they look with the half gold peeling paint and half aluminum showing. It's going to be a rattle can job with the tires left on, but I want tips on preparation and painting. How should I sand/grind them to get them ready for paint? Opinions are welcome, but I'm pretty decided, so please if you would, focus on advice for prep and painting! Appreciate it guys!

TransAm79

I've been down that road. Did a set of BMW wheels with the tires on not too long ago. You want to sand, sand, then sand again. Start with something not too fine, dry sand, then move to finer, then primer. Between sanding and priming, make sure you have some acetone handy to clean the wheels with before you lay that coat of primer. After your primer drys, wet sand them to scuff them up some. Let them dry, then paint. They came out great. I repeated the wet sand/prime process 2 time per wheel. It's all just a judgement call though. After the paint dried, I clear coated mine.

Use index cards between the wheel and new tire. They should fit right in the gap. You can also use newspaper, or blue painters tape.

PM me if you have questions, glad to help. It's a tedious process but if you take your time they come out great.

CherokeeCountry

So you sanded em down really well got everything off, then mineral spirit/acetoned them to clean, that I understand. Afterwards, you say prime them, wet sand the primer, lay another primer coat, wet sand that as well, then apply paint coats? Do I wet/dry sand between paint coats too?

TransAm79

I wet sanded between paint coats. It sounds dumb, but my wheels came out GREAT. Let me see if I can find a picture. The thicker the coats, the worse they look if you hit something and chip them though. Just remember that.

TransAm79

Here's how they turned out on my BMW.

CherokeeCountry

Yeah, I'm doing very thin coats on them. Probably two primer two paint then clear. Do you remember around what grit sandpaper you used to wet sand the primer and paint coats? And those look killer on your BMW, very nice job. Were those aluminum?

TransAm79

I want to say I started at maybe 700-800 grit on the dry. But I was pulling the old coating off the wheel, so I needed a high grit. On the wet sand it was very dull, like 400 grit maybe. Just enough to scuff them up.

Yes those wheels were aluminum. Took me hours to get them to turn out like that. They had a lot of imperfections, so it was A LOT of sanding and even more priming.

CherokeeCountry

I think I'll need to hit it with like a 240 or 320 first, there are flakes of stuff and bare aluminum. So no coating is left on a lot of the wheels. Then after that skip around to like 700. Thanks so much for all the advice on methods and technique.

TransAm79

Anytime. Just let me know if you need help. Looking forward to seeing them white.

CherokeeCountry

I'll probably get them all off and paint them this Saturday, so they'll be up around then I hope.

CherokeeCountry

Anyone have some other advice or opinions about this before I tackle it this weekend?

auburn_XJ

Put small pipe over the neck of the inflation tube and use a power drill with a wire cone to sand and use a 800grt near the tube and do the rest the same but the wet sand between every coat except clear gets rid of bubbles.