Paintin 'em stock rims black?

[shajbot]

Alloy 15" wheels, what should they look like black with chrome/polished lips?

[eurohazard]

Which alloy rims? The silver painted ones? Or the machined ones?

You're not going to be able to chrome the out lips of the painted wheels. They might be able to be polished, but I doubt it. The machined wheels could probably be polished highly by a pro, and then the center part could be painted.

It might look OK, personally the only black wheels that look good are huge ones (20" +) with chrome lips.

[bigbird]

either paint them all black or leave them be.

[shajbot]

Originally Posted by bigbird

either paint them all black or leave them be.

Like eyeball's, chrome lip and maybe chrome the lugs area but I think it should look pretty kewl on stock alloy rims.

[bigbird]

it will look like you painted your stock wheels to look like a wheel with a lip...which it has none. but ive never seen it before and it might look good, i still think black will be better.

[cykaaro]

Firstly I'd say go for it, but ensure you clean them well, and definitely use paint specifically used for painting wheels. I've done my original jeep wheels which stood up well, and now the camry. I'm not sure how well painted chrome colour would look to be honest.
You could possibly clean the wheels up, keep the natural colour where you want and paint the rest black. That could look not to bad actually.
Either way, just plan it out, clean the wheels extremely well for best adhesion and take your time to do it right.

Good luck!

[shajbot]

Yeah man, I'm still finding away to get all the brake disc dust off. So far a tooth brush worked but it took too much time and I couldn't get placed.

[cykaaro]

Powerwash it REALLY well, then take a wire wheel on a drill and have at it, but not on the plastic center caps of course!. Then powerwash it again.
When painting the center caps, remove the toyota emblem if you wish to keep it chrome. Just cut the center back piece out where the melt it, and ease them off. Once done, just them back on.

[cmjohnson]

I've never yet seen a typical DIY wheel painting job come out looking very good and having any durability to it. I would suggest that you have your rims professionally powdercoated instead, in black or silver or any
color you like.

Polished factory rims in particular are going to be a problem because they won't stay shiny for long due to
the alloy used. It will develop a light layer of white aluminum corrosion fairly quickly if unprotected.

You MIGHT be able to get them two toned by the powdercoater. The procedure is to first have the rims
fully cleaned and polished, then masked off over what you want to keep in bare polished metal,
then the black powder is shot, then the masking is very carefully removed, the powdercoat is heat cured,
then the clear powdercoat is applied and then that's heat cured.

This should give you the look you're looking for and also it'll be very durable and long lasting.


CJ
is applied

[shajbot]

Yeah I'm not aware of that much work lol but I'll try. For right now is finding the time to clean these rims, sun ups most of day time and it's like 100F and I don't have a garage.

Thanks a lot for the tips.

[xjfish]

Goodluck! I want to see pics, been considering doing this myself someday. I painted a set of "Laredo" Alloy Jeep rims black and they turned out nice. I used aircraft stripper to take off the factory clearcoat, not sure if this is necessary but i would recommend it.

[cykaaro]

I've always been lucky enough to have the clearcoat pretty much gone, so no problems when painting. [gotta love winters!] Definitely would need to remove, or at least get an existing clearcoat ready for painting whereby there wouldn't be an adhesion issue at all.