Steel wheel rejuvenation...

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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:
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After:
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Looks good

When you paint the wheels black again and put the hub caps back on, it looks really good too. Looks more real from a distance. I did that with my Camry.
 
Nice work!

A friend rigged a garbage can, some common household chemical and a battery to electrically remove rust.

It worked great. In his case the "results down the road" were lessened by his use of cheap, dollar store paint.

Would've been better with a bush.
 
I went thru the about the same process with the wheels on my new to me 06 xB but I used Rustoleum high temp gloss black. I run them bare without those cheap looking plastic wheel covers that came on the car.
 
Thanks guys. I also agree it looks better than new. I have no idea what Topy put on the wheels at the factory, but these wheels are roughly 3 years old and they were already like this. I've painted the same Topy steel wheels on another car using these same steps and it's been longer than three years and still look like they did the day I did them, both color and finish.

Oh by the way I forgot to mention that I used index cards around the rim so the over spray doesn't hit the tire. Way easier to do than masking off the tire, works perfectly.

Originally Posted By: AZjeff
Nice job. Get a little cap for the hub center and run them without the wheel covers. It's the in thing.

I don't think I'm that brave!
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Originally Posted By: Zorobabel
I take it you did not remove the weights?

Correct, the first time I did this for another car I did the whole process of marking the center line of the weights and removing them. Then I thought about it this time around, if I ever get the wheels rebalanced they're going to put new weights on and scratch up the paint anyway. I have no problem doing more coats so just left them on.
 
Originally Posted By: NoNameJoe

Originally Posted By: Zorobabel
I take it you did not remove the weights?

Correct, the first time I did this for another car I did the whole process of marking the center line of the weights and removing them. Then I thought about it this time around, if I ever get the wheels rebalanced they're going to put new weights on and scratch up the paint anyway. I have no problem doing more coats so just left them on.

That makes sense, it's what I'll do, since I'm going to use a sponge brush anyway (I'm not crazy about inhaling paint vapors, even inhaling the volatiles in brushed paint messes me up).
What instrument did you use to clean the tight section near the welding?
 
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