wheel painting

[skulley]

I have the stock 13" rims on my Terc. They are white and I was wondering if a cheap fix could be just spray painting them black. Has anyone done this? Can you do it without taking the wheels off the car? I want to get 14" rims eventually but I'm waiting to wear out my 13" tires.

[hberdan]

Sure, you can use spray paint and make the wheels any color you want! But it's better to take them off so you don't get paint on the brakes, etc...
Take em off and wash them with a brush and hot soapy water to remove dirt oil and brake dust, so the paint can adhere. If the wheel is really rusty, you could carefully wirebrush the rust.
Cover the tire valve with masking tape, and cut a wheel-sized hole in a large piece of cardboard--use it to mask the tire.
Paint the outside of the wheel, let it dry, do another coat, etc, until you like it, then put it back on and do another one.
Please post photos when you're done!

Alternatively, you could wash the wheels while they're still on the car and paint them with some brush-on enamel.

[blade]

i have done itwith the tires on the car and alli did was put paper over the breakes and i did not get any paint on the breakes.the one thing to do is wash the rims so thay are clean and mabytake awire brish to them quickly. butmy now black rims look good. Oh you might want tocover the center hubs just as a procotion.

[ARCHINSTL]

I covered the dismounted wheels with newspaper and went around the rim with masking tape to ensure no spray touched the rubber (also wrapping the valve stem). I used a Rust-Oleum primer and the R-O satin black. I also painted the insides.
They came out quite nice, although since the OE caps had been long-lost by the PO, I have silver wheel covers with the black kinda peeping through as a nicer contrast than the white; I did not like the appearance of "just black" wheels with no covers on the gold car.
Tom M.

[takza]

That's the nice thing about black wheels...just clean them up and spray them...overspray on the tires doesn't show that much.

[4x4wagon]

I just got done painting the BBS rims on my Legend. I was going to paint them back the original gold, but I wanted to test them with white paint to see how they looked. It was a bit easier for me though, as the wheels are 3 piece so I was able to take them apart and paint only what I wanted to paint.


Don't mine the wheel gap, this was before I completely put the wheel together and aired up the tire, the car is on a jack in this pic.





They make wheel paint that is for higher temperature and will hold up nicely to rock chips and such. It's by Dupli-Color and is sold at O'reillys and most likely about any auto parts store. I used it on my Integra, and they came out quite nice. They make primer, paint, and clear coat specifically designed for use on wheels.

Sorry I don't have any close ups of the wheels.

[skulley]

Thanks everyone. I was wondering where I can get center caps at. If it comes out well I'll have some plastic Toyota hubcap rims I will want to sell if anyone is interested.

[skulley]

BTW, I just noticed that I don't have the center caps and the hole in the middle of the wheel is open and dirty. Can you buy Toyota ones to fit? If not is it safe to spray the hole?

[blade]

i would not paint the hole just to be on yhe safe side