Paint my wheels

[stephen low]

Leeroy

I was contemplating painting the centres to match the planned stripe colour for the car.

Made the mistake of letting the abrasive blaster test blast one rim only to find out centres were powder coated and that continued blasting would have buggered the surface. Fellow tested front face of course so I had to then do something anyway.

Ended up putting centres through overnight furnace to remove coating sucessfully and have had them powder coated in Onyx black, rather than painting due to preparation costs.

Can give you the details of the two companys I used if you want and this exercise cost me $170 all up to achieve the finish for the four centres.

I'll try and get a picture of a centre to post here later on for a visual clue.

Cheers

[Aussie Mike]

I would advise against powder coating the centers. On track days the brake temps get hot enough that the heat conducted to the wheel centers causes the powder coat to soften and melt. Brake dust then sticks to powder coating.

The coating is also pretty brittle. It can chip and flake off if hit by a stone. That was the general state of Garrett's wheels before restoring them.

Cheers

[Zedn]

I used to have a set of gold Simmons wheels that i had refurbished by the Simmons factory in Sydney (back in 1999). They were just using regular 2-pack paint from memory. The paint lasted fine for the 2 years i had the car afterwards, however i didnt do any track driving, which would add a lot more heat.

I think as long as you wash them regularly and dont use harsh wheel cleaners this would be ok.

I would phone up an automotive paint supplier and ask them what they recommend. You can always use engine enamel but the colour choices are limited.

Ceramic coating would be worth checking out.