Wheels UPDate!

[cobracommander]

How do i go about prepping my wheels for paint? I'm gonna use duplicolor chrome around the outside edge/rim and the middle and spokes are going to be a gloss black. If it turns out will it's going to look awesome, because later i'm going to shoot a new coat of black on the bike, and pretty much black everything out. I plan on painting the carb body and maybe the belt cover with the chrome too, which will give the bike a custom look. Both are spraycans, so do i just need to clean them up, sand the rust off or what. What should i use, i heard somewhere that wd40 and steel wool would get the rust off, should i just do that?

[sfzoo]

i just cleaned mine real good. then masked the tires. although mine didn't have too much rust. i also sanded very minimally..not sure if this is bad idea tho

[noiseguy]

Don't EVER EVER EVER use WD40 on something you're going to paint!!!!!

I made the mistake once of using WD40 *near* something else I was about to paint... fisheyes all over; wasted $50 in paint and a weekend redoing the work.

Use those green scuff pads or 220 wet-dry sandpaper with water to even out the paint / rust. If you're going to do a shiny surface I'd use a build primer from a rattlecan over the 220 sanding and re-sand it with 600 grit; otherwise you'll see the sanding marks. Wipe the whole thing down with either paint prep or lacquer thinner before paint (or primer for than matter) after sanding.

Last time I redid rims I de-mounted the tires (needed new anyway), scuffed the rims with the green pads, wiped down with lacquer thinner, and painted them with Duplicolor polyurethane wheel cover paint. It's very close to stock, looks great finished and covers over rough spots pretty well.

[GIJoeBob]

I pulled the tires off of mine and took them to a sandblasting service. They sandblasted and primed both wheels for $40. I painted them gloss white and they turned out perfect.

[cobracommander]

Here's a pic i took on my phone of the what i've painted so far.



looks good so far. I have a question though, about how long is it gonna take for the paint to stop rubbing off, i don't want to try to put the tires back on yet because when i was looking at the wheels the other day, the paint was rubbing off a little on my fingers.

[noiseguy]

Silver paint does that. Try hitting it with a compatible clear coat.

[justinnielsen01]

if you want it to last just get them sandblasted for 5 or 10 bucks and then get like 400 grit sand paper and go over it by hand. then paint it and i think you should paint it all one color. but just use the duplicolor its the best paint on the planet i think. good luck

[cobracommander]

here's the (almost) finished rear wheel. as you can see, my masking job failed there at the bottom of the wheel, i'm gonna have to fix that, but overall it came out really cool. on the front wheel i painted the black first, that way if it happens again i can sand it off, the spokes are easier to mask than the rim.

[dukemartini]

those look sharp man, if they look half as kool on your scoot as they do now i think i'm going to paint my rims like that. keep up the good work

[cobracommander]

those look sharp man, if they look half as kool on your scoot as they do now i think i'm going to paint my rims like that. keep up the good work

thanks

it is going to look funny for a little bit, it'll be a while till i get around to painting the plastics. as soon as the wheels are done i'm putting it back together and driving it while i work on my car, it's gonna be awesome for driving to the parts store. it'll have freakin cool wheels though.