Part Seven: Refinishing the Wheels

I had one big project left to feel like “Phase 1” or whatever I’m calling it on this car is complete. It’s been fixed, lightly modded and set back to factory fresh in many areas. One was left. The wheels. My goal was to save them and bring them back the the OEM finish. The previous owner spray painted them flat black for some reason. From factory they were a nice gunmetal color, so why the prior owner decided they needed to be a flat black confused me until I remembered all the other decisions they made with this car that I had to fix.

Over the months I’ve owned the car I would periodically attempt to the remove the paint. I figured it would be easy since the paint was already coming off itself. The wheels were spotty with the black paint flaking off. It was obvious the person who painted them did not prep them at all. The areas where the paint had come off revealed a very nice glossy gunmetal finish underneath. No sanding was done. My first attempt was to power wash them. This did not go great. The paint surprisingly stood up to it. So I tried again after letting mineral spirits soak on them for a bit. And then again using acetone. Nothing.

Look how they massacred my boy.

I did find that with enough scrubbing I could use acetone and remove the paint. Paint thinner also worked well, leaving the OEM finish underneath untouched, probably because it’s clear coated. However it took two hours just to do one spoke of the wheel. With eight spokes per wheel that would be about 64 hours of scrubbing. I could have done it over weeks or months, slowly, but really didn’t have the patience or desire to do that. I came to the decision that I would either refinish them or replace them.

I first looked online and found a set of OEM wheels near me for $400 with tires. Honestly, that is a damn good deal. They were three hours away and it would be a few weeks before I could get up there. I heavily considered getting them but in the end I decided that I genuinely prefer brighter wheels. I also like the factory wheel design. As my current wheels had already been painted and were not going to come back to the factory finish anytime soon I decided to go the refinishing route.

I keep using the term “refinish” instead of spray paint because it sounds better but also because I attempted to do it properly to give it a nice, OEM look with long lasting results. The “long-lasting” part will be determined in time.

Here was my method. First thing I did was hit them with paint thinner to remove any impurities, grime and brake dust from the surface. Then I lightly hit them with fine sand paper to scuff them. After that I hit them with paint thinner again to remove sanding dust and trash from the surfaces again.

Once I was satisfied that they were clean I used Rustoleum aluminum wheel paint. It’s a bright metallic silver, a huge contrast to the flat black, as well as the OEM gunmetal finish. But as I said, I prefer brighter wheels to dark ones.

I did the “DIY” method of using index cards to mask off the tires, which worked quite well. After laying down a few base coats of color I let it dry and then wet-sanded out a few small imperfections. I then hit it with another two coats of color. As that last coat because tacky I applied clear coat.

I got a little heavy handed with the clear coat because I wanted to protect the finish. The final result was some very glossy and bright wheels. I think they came out quite well, but they are definitely bright when the sun hits them.

Dark areas in these pics are just shadow on the metallic finish, not missed coverage.

I’m very happy with the outcome. Taste may vary when it comes to light vs dark wheels but I like them, especially now that they are all the same color and actually look clean when they are clean. After the clear coat cured overnight I did go back and wet-sand out a few small rough spots and trash you may be able to see in the pics leaving a nice smooth OEM like finish to the wheels.

Here is the final result on the car: