My attempt at refinishing wheels

So a couple of weeks ago I got a set of four steel rims from an MR member for cheap. I was planning on putting them like that on the Datsun as temporary wheels. They were in not-so-bad shape but I said why not make them look better since "temporary" might end up quiet a long time with this project.

So this is what the wheels looked like when I got them :



Some usual steel rims rust :



Wasn't looking too good :



So I started to eliminate all the rust with a 4" coarse wire wheel brush, then went with a 3" fine wire wheel brush, and finally some 200 grit hand sanding.

This is what it looked like in the middle of this process :



When there was no more rust, I procedeed with a good wash and then I applied the first coat of anti-rust primer :



It looked much better, no more rust!



After 2 coats of primer I applied a first coat of Duplicolor wheel paint. And then a second one.

And this is the end result. I'm pretty happy with the result.



I think tomorrow I'll add another layer of paint and then 2 layers of clearcoat.

what's that color , it's pretty leet , nice job bro

blacksheep said:

wow nice work

how long did it take you so far?

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3 hours today, removing rust and painting, and maybe another 3-4 hours yesterday cleaning, removing rust, painting. The longest part was taking all the rust off.

Probably another one more hour tomorrow for the last coat of paint, a quick wet sanding with 1000 or 2000 grit, and then the clearcoat.

200sxBoY said:

what's that color , it's pretty leet , nice job bro

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It's the Dupli-Color High performance wheel paint, color itself is "Bronze". There is bronze, silver, white, and black. I think there might be other colors but that's all that was available at my local Canadian Tire.

Not to bad Nadim.

i think the paint will peel and crack if you paint them a second time.
i had a buddy use that same paint and it is like you must paint it all in one shot. if you let it dry too long and put another coat it will crack and peel like a son of a bitch.

at the end had to resand and repaint

aren't all the coats supposed to be put on within 10 minutes of each other?

Hey you guys,
I painted my mags the same way, but the ****ing paint went off when the garage installed the rims..

MAKE SURE THE PAINT STICKS I GUESS *banghead*

Wow great job! It's gonna look great!
What's your Datsun by the way? You could post pics of the wheel on the car... or only pics of the car.

Yes they recommend (on the paint can) to put all the coats within 1 hour of each other. But I think that if I do sand it down a bit it should be fine.

I'm also worried that the paint will chip on the lip when mounting tires ... but actually i'm not too worried cause those are just temporary steel rims to move the car around and test drive the car.

The Datsun is a 510 1971, 4dr, standard, with an L16 with hot cams, SU carbs are being installed right now, carrera coilover suspension, oversized sway bars, and some other goodies. It still can't pass the SAAQ inspection so me and my brother (Karim E36) are putting it back together to eventually plate it and hopefully race it on local tracks.

I think there are pics somewhere in a old old old post ...

Here are pics of the car :