Livefreeandrive

Happy Monday, I have been looking for a way to touch up a few small dings on my silver painted cup wheels. I have my wife on the hunt for some nail polish that would work but in the meantime I found an easy fix.
I bought a pen called a PILOT SILVER MARKER, extra fine point. I used it to mark my luggage so I can pick it out easily and it is very close to Porsche factory silver wheel paint. The dings I had seem to go down to a mustard color metal primer so the slightly different silver color was a significant improvement!! They sell these pilot pens at Staples, etc. Make sure you shake the pen well before use.
Steve

Dudley

Thanks Steve,

Sounds like it is worth a try.

Dave

Crimson Nape Racing

Our motto at Crimson Nape Racing is : "why use a screw when duct tape will do" and we are always on the lookout for new ideas (the guy who held on the temporary mud flaps with office binder clips to protect the rocker panels of his Saleen Mustang comes to mind). Anyway, I think fixing wheel chips with a silver pen would be a great addition to our bag of tricks. Now if we only organized enough to actually have these things written down somewhere....

Livefreeandrive

FWIW, I looked at "testers? testors" plastic model paint in silver and the color was close but application a little more comprehensive=simple always wins!! Do not rule out those large binder clips!! I have a few in each car and tool box!

campbesl

Steve,

Is the silver color of your cup wheels the same color that is typical for the turbo twist wheels? If so, I'll be buying one of those pens tonight!

Hey, have you wondered if you're going to be responsible for a run on PILOT SILVER MARKER, EXTRA-FINE POINT pens?

Scott

Livefreeandrive

I guess I should have included that "no affiliation" disclaimer on my post!! I am sure that these pens work well with most silver wheels. I was shocked at the closeness of the paint match. I drove behind a dealer once and saw this fellow with a very well equipted van sprucing up a wheel while it was mounted on a nice 996. I pulled over and started interrogating him and he gave me the old Van Goh speech=only experts can touch up these wheels.yada,yada. That is when my quest began. I am still looking for some perfect nail polish, at least that is why I tell my wife I am studying strange women

Ray Calvo

Wrote this up for our Porsche Club magazine

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REPAIRING PAINT SCRATCHES ON WHEELS

This is addressed towards those of you who have silver-painted alloy wheels, as used on the 924/944/928 and on many of the 964/993 series Porsches. It is NOT for those of you with the Fuchs forged alloy wheels, chrome plated wheels, or polished or satin aluminum (either clear coated or not).

I am sure that at one time or other you have suffered a scratch in the silver painted surface. Maybe the tire installer wasn't too careful, or you scratched them taking them on or off your wheel carrier transporting them to and from the track, or you scraped a curb at one time. In any case, you might try this method for touching up the scratched area.

Sand the damaged area first with 80 or 100 grit sandpaper. Sand ONLY the area damaged; do not even lightly touch the outlying undamaged area or you will expand the area you have to touch up. Sand until you have an even contour. Then progress to finer and finer grits; first 220 or 320 grit and finally finishing with 500 grit. These painted wheels are generally cast aluminum, and so should sand very easily.

An excellent paint match is one of the following:
Plasti-Kote no. 3230
Dupli-Color no. 77-01579

Both of these are the little brush-on touch up vials. The color is actually a Toyota very fine silver used from about '89 to '94 (the Dupli-Color vial I got calls it Toyota Platinum Silver). You can now touch up the sanded area with the paint. You should get a very close match to the factory original paint, and from several feet away the damage should just about disappear. I used this with success on both the OE and the aftermarket (track) wheels on my 993.

(Note: my thanks to Bob Petruska on the Audi A4 list for this helpful hint)