Now that the temperatures are getting hot and the salt is off the roads, time to fix rust. These steel wheels that came with the car I bought are in rough shape so I painted them. I did this on another car and it still looks exactly like the day I did it, very durable. Not even a single chip.
The finished product came out beautiful. On one of the shots you can see every letter stamped into the wheel identification stuff. Left the wheel covers off so the paint can dry overnight.
The process was:
1. Remove wheel and use all tire and wheel cleaner to degrease whole wheel and tire front to back.
2. Sand all of the rust away, sand the rust out of the center hub hole.
3. Use compressed air to blow the whole wheel dry.
4. Mask off the center hub part and the valve stem. In the after pictures I removed the masking on the center, I also remove the paint where the lugs meet the wheel after I'm done painting, because I don't want them seating against paint.
5. Do a final alcohol wipe and use tackcloth to remove lint and dust.
6. Duplicolor adhesion promoter + filler primer, followed by VHT satin black epoxy spray paint (I love this stuff extremely durable), followed by Duplicolor matte wheel clear coat.
As it dries the wet clear coat becomes more matte for a subdued, deep, black color without looking shiny and gaudy. Huge improvement compared to the rusty, ashy gray.
Before:
After:
The finished product came out beautiful. On one of the shots you can see every letter stamped into the wheel identification stuff. Left the wheel covers off so the paint can dry overnight.
The process was:
1. Remove wheel and use all tire and wheel cleaner to degrease whole wheel and tire front to back.
2. Sand all of the rust away, sand the rust out of the center hub hole.
3. Use compressed air to blow the whole wheel dry.
4. Mask off the center hub part and the valve stem. In the after pictures I removed the masking on the center, I also remove the paint where the lugs meet the wheel after I'm done painting, because I don't want them seating against paint.
5. Do a final alcohol wipe and use tackcloth to remove lint and dust.
6. Duplicolor adhesion promoter + filler primer, followed by VHT satin black epoxy spray paint (I love this stuff extremely durable), followed by Duplicolor matte wheel clear coat.
As it dries the wet clear coat becomes more matte for a subdued, deep, black color without looking shiny and gaudy. Huge improvement compared to the rusty, ashy gray.
Before:
After: