painting wheels???

[tbrackman84]

I have painted steel wheels for my truck and they have held up suprisingly well, wire brush first, sand the whole wheel, wipe it off, rub paint thinner arond, then alcohol, then water ...but i am just wondering if anyone has painted their aluminum wheels and how well it has held up. or if anyone has had them pawdercoated and how well that has held up???

[honda400ex2003]

i would say powder wound be the best to do to the rims. paint will wear off if you hit berms and such with them on a regular basis. yoiu could just keep touching them up but it still wears. dont do this with the tires on though. lol. take them off to do it so it actually looks good on the machine. lol. i would do water then alcohol then thinner though cause the alcohol will evaporate the water and the thinner will make sure it is really clean before painting while stripping off everything that is not suppose to stay on. but just my .02 though. steve

[spearman_929]

i painted mine and taped off the tires it doestn look bad i just respray them after bout every other wash just to touch them up. but powder coat is coming this winter

[Ryanwolfe911]

I used dupli-color wheel paint that I found at auto zone, and after bead blasting the wheels, and hitting them with some metal conditoner, they actually came out suprisingly well, and seem to hold up pretty good.
http://www.duplicolor.com/products/wheel.html

[tri5ron]

Originally posted by tbrackman84 or if anyone has had them pawdercoated and how well that has held up??? [/B] a few years ago I had a buddy of mine who owns a polishing/PC company, do the wheels on my mom's Suburban.
She has a nice set of highly polished Boyd's, and the problem with polished aluminum wheels is they only look good for a couple of weeks or so, before they need to be polished again. (alot of work)
Thats when I learned that you can now get Clear Powder Coating! Yea !
so I had him polish them to a near chrome luster, then Clear PC them. Keep in mind that when the clear PC is applied, it does take a little of the luster away, but not much.

They basically look like they were freshly polished a week ago.
The benifit to this is that they ALWAYS look like they were polished a week ago, and no need to continually polish them again every few weeks.
Simply wipe them off with a soft cloth when they get dirty, and they are good as new.

The downside to this is, (and he told me in advance), that it only last's about 3 or 4 years, (depending on various conditions, exposure, abuse, etc.).
He said that it seemed to be especially true for Boyd wheels, due to the particular alloy used in those wheels.
They DO polish up very nicely, but they are SOooo smooth that the PC eventually begins to lose its ability to stick, and begins to blister and flake/peel off.

This is what is happening to them in a few spots now, and they will soon need to be stripped, repolished, and re-PC'd.

Knowing this in advance, they've basically looked like they were freshly polished for over 3 years now, and have been virtually Maintaince-Free for that time.
So I am satisfied with the results, and would do it again.

a few of the members here do Powder Coating as a side business, and maybe they will chime in and give some professional insight to this.

Hope this helps answer your question,
Ron