donberry

wheels on my newly acquired 928 left a little to be desired as they had some nicks in them plus some curb rash.
Bought some Duplicolor wheel paint, went with graphite color. Sanded down all nicks and rash on LF wheel using 220 wet sandpaper. Did not want to remove tire so I then covered tire with vaseline to keep paint from sticking. Wiped it down with prep. Primed it then painted it. Wow, this stuff looks good. I also coated it with clear, anxious to see how durable it is.
I may go back to lighter color, but the Duplicolor does a great job.......depending on how well it holds up.....
Now of course I have to do caliper etc......

Toejam

Yeah it's not bad stuff...

I sprayed my old 15" phone dials with the silver and they look 100% better.

David Floyd

johnny928

Donberry,

Do you have any pictures of the wheels you just painted?

Toejam

Is that a sarcastic thumb there, David?

ian

I have painted a few sets of wheels with the duplicolor paint (I think 3 or 4 sets, not sure I loose track of the wheels I've had) and have been very pleased with it, seems to hold up very well on my daily driver VW, and the finish has looked good on all the other wheels I have tried it on as well....


Here is what you can do with some creative taping, and too much time on your hands (paint is the duplicolor anthricite)....

David Floyd

Nope, Don liked my painted wheels and wanted to give a try.

I got the idea from Ian, who I think started a wheel painting bug.

ian

This is a trend I will take credit for, but now i'm forced to try and think of new ways to paint my wheels, so far I have done

1) Black with silver Lip
2) Anthricite with a silver Lip
3) Solid Anthricite (I've done this one 3 times)
4) Solid Silver
5) Solid Red (track wheels and boy did they look interesting)

Up next?
Red with a silver lip?
Silver with a black lip?
Anthricite with a black lip?
Leave them silver (gasp...)
or back to the original black with silver a black lip.....

johnny928

ian

Do you have a picture of the black with silver lip?

I really liked the anthricite with silver lip, it looks really neat. What did you do to prep the wheel? Did you put a clear coat over top of the paint???

heinrich

Ian I really like the anthracite with silver lip. Looks professional.

ian

I don't have any close ups of the black wheels (although I might if I paint my current 993 wheels that way), this is the best picture I have of those wheels and my frist 951.



As far as how I did it,

Well its actually fairly easy to do, provided you are not in a huge hurry. The prep work is going to be the most important part, completely cleaning the wheel so it has not grease or anything else on the painting surface is paramount. Then once you have a nice clean surface you can start your sanding, the more time you spend here the better the paint will stick and the more OEM it will look.

Then to get the silver lip it will require some creative taping, get out that masking tape and the exacto knife and tape off the lip (or don't tape if you want a 1 color finish). It takes me a good deal of time per wheel with the tape, it takes me two law and order episodes to get all 4 wheels taped the way I want them.

Painting consists of priming (normally a couple coats), then painting (number of coats varries, but many light coats works better than 1 heavy one). And followed up with a clear coat. I have cleared the outter silver lip, and I have not, I think removing the tape and clearing the whole wheel produces a slightly better overall finish, but that would depend on the condition of the wheel......

hope that helps.

johnny928

Thanks for the picture and the details ian! One more question for you, was there a special type of primer that you used for the aluminum rims? Thanks

ian

Well I didn't take the wheel all the way down to the raw aluminum, I went down maybe a couple of layers through the OEM paint just to get a nice smooth bonding surface. I used automotive self etching primer (I used a dark color just in case the wheel got a small chip the silver wouldn't show through). Seemed to work quite well, but I learn this stuff on a trial and error basis so perhaps someone with greater knoledge base in painting could offer some other insite.

Porsche5050

Ian,
Do you still have that picture of the black 944 Turbo with red wheels? I love that tacky look.

ian

Tariq,

I lost all my pictures (except that one) of that car when my last computer crashed, and I still don't archive my files on backup disks..... for some reason I just don't want to learn that lesson.