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Painted Pro4X Wheels

12790 Views 45 Replies 28 Participants Last post by  felix55
9
Well I had some time the last couple of days and decided to go along with my original plan of painting my wheels. If the paint does not hold up like the way I want it to, I have a place nearby that will sandblast and powdercoat the wheels for $60 each.

Quick how to of what I did:
Bought 4 Duplicolor Semi-Gloss Black 500degree engine paint. None of the stores nearby had the black wheel paint in stock. I also bough 2 of the primer and 2 packets of the 320grit sand paper, and 2 rolls of painters tape.

1. Cleaned the wheels and tires to get off any road tar, brake dust, and other junk on there. I used simple green since i had a large bottle of it still laying around in my garage. The more you clean off, the better the chances your paint will stay on there longer. Don't forget to also clean off any grease/armor all thats on your tires. If you don't your painters tape will not stick on the tires.

2. Scuff up the surface of your paint with the 320 grit sand paper. I tried the fine metal wire cup brush but it was leaving too many deep scratches for my taste so I just hand sanded the entire wheel.

3. Tape up the edges of the wheel to prevent overspray from getting to your tires. Small 4” strips typically worked best for me as that didn’t force me to try and bend the tape to the edges. Then tape up the rest of the tire with more tape and newspapers.


4. Wipe down entire wheel with a clean cloth and acetone. This gets rid of any dust and oils left on the wheel. Oil + paint wheel = peeling.

5. Find a well ventilated area that has minimal amounts of dust particles in the air and start with the primer. Spray super light coats at first. I sprayed about 3 light coats of the primer before hitting it with a medium coat to cover everything else.


6. Wait for the primer to dry (I only waited 1hour) and then repeat the same steps with the actual color paint. Real light coats then followed by medium coats. I did about 4 lights coats before hitting the wheel with 3 medium coats. I used all 4 cans of the paint and could have probably used a 5th but several medium coats after each other can result in runs if the paint isn’t dry yet. My time was limited so I didn’t have time for the paint to dry long enough for than 3 medium coats.


7. Let the paint bake in the sun for at least 3 hours. This will help cure the paint.


8. Unmask the tire slowly by peeling off the tape slowly to make sure you don’t have thick overspray that may have bonded the wheel and tape together.


Mounted back on the truck. Sorry for the dark pics but it took longer than I thought to do.




The funny/scary part about the whole process was jacking the truck up on jackstands. I had it up on all 4 stands the other night when we had the 5.6 earthquake here in San Jose. The epicenter was less than 10miles from me so it was quite strong. When it happened, I was in the kitchen grabbing a drink :cheers: so I ran to the garage while it was happening and was praying that the truck didn't topple over. LOL Who would have thought the first time I take all 4 wheels of the truck we'd have an earthquake just down the street from me.

:upsidedow
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Looks sick!! great looking truck...nice write-up too

maybe consider painting the calipers black. Red would also look good but you have that black theme going thats really working well
um the paint look great!

byt the cynder blocks you used for the rotors make things look very

umm... you know

lol

can you take pics of it during the day too
I placed the cinder blocks under the front rotors just in case we had an aftershock that was stronger and it did knock the truck off its stands. But they were more for effect than anything if the truck didnt budge when it was rocking and rolling around a 5.6 earthquake. I'm so glad I used 4 stands and placed them at the right spots according to Nissan. You should have seen my face as I watched my truck roll around during the earthquake. LOL

I'm gonna wash the truck either today or tomorrow. I'll take some day shots then. Truck is all dirty from sitting there for a week.
Looks good! Now get the skid plate off and rattle-can it black.
Rick Guess said:
um the paint look great!

byt the cynder blocks you used for the rotors make things look very

umm... you know

lol

can you take pics of it during the day too

can someone rephrase that in English :huh:


Nice wheels!!!!
Skid plate will be powdercoted black. ;)

Calipers, I don't know about them yet. They're kind of small still (especially the back) but we'll see. If I do paint the stock calipers, they would probably go red match the black/red interior of the truck. Right now, I like the fact that they are still silver and semi-shiny from being new. :D
Looks great bro! Nice work!! :cheers:
FourDoor said:
Skid plate will be powdercoted black. ;)

Calipers, I don't know about them yet. They're kind of small still (especially the back) but we'll see. If I do paint the stock calipers, they would probably go red match the black/red interior of the truck. Right now, I like the fact that they are still silver and semi-shiny from being new. :D
I'm with ya! It's gonna look great (hell, it already does)...
Not bad at all. Nice attention to detail on the paint job.:D
I'm thinking of getting my wheels powder coated but didnt think of skid plate.
Will powder coat on skid plate last after a offroading ??


??FourDoor - what part of cali you in ??
tazstitan said:
I'm thinking of getting my wheels powder coated but didnt think of skid plate.
Will powder coat on skid plate last after a offroading ??


??FourDoor - what part of cali you in ??
Only time will tell. I went w/ paint because it's easier to touch up. If I cant keep the paint in good shape, I may have it covered in bed liner...
I'm in Northern Cali, San Jose right now but will be moving to Ontario in a couple of months.
FourDoor said:
I'm in Northern Cali, San Jose right now but will be moving to Ontario in a couple of months.
Ontario, Canada or Ontario, Cali (So Cal) ???
That was a funny write up, Murphy's law almost.
There is thread showing the caliper paint and process; I used the green (matches my kayak) that is easy and cheap and in wide variety of colors if your interested later.
Great right up and execution, if I could get a long weekend (4 days) do you think that would be enough time? I'm not sure based on your write up the total length of time, start to finish, you mentioned a week.:computern
I like the way they look
any day pictures?
Wheels look great! Is the paint strong enough to not rub off? Why not clearcoat em?
Not bad, I was wondering what they would look like painted.
Very nice, they look awesome!!
tazstitan said:
Ontario, Canada or Ontario, Cali (So Cal) ???
Ontario, So Cal. I'll be living in the IE and will need to find out where some good spots to go off-roading soon. ;)

Total time was about a day and a half. That included spending part of the day going from store to store trying to find the paint. I started at 1PM on day 1, but didn't get the wheels off the truck until about 5PM since I ran other errands and stuff. From 5 to about 10PM, I spent that time cleaning and sanding the wheels. I also added the layer of tape around the rims in the first pic. I spent another hour in the AM taping up the tires with newspaper and cleaning the rims with acetone. I layed my first coat of paint at about 11AM and the last final coat at about 3PM. At that point it was just a waiting game.

What I would suggest timeline wise:
Day 1: Remove wheels and prep with sanding and taping. This took me a lot longer than I thought but I was being anal about sanding every bit of the rims.

Day 2: Start with paint in the AM so you can use the sun in the afternoon to help dry the paint. You want a minimum of 3hours of drying time. 6-7 would be preferred.

I actually bought clear coat as well but the paint came out shinier than what I wanted so I didn't add the clear. That plus the sun came down sooner than I wanted and the kids trick or treating were walking in my driveway when the paint was still drying so I decided not to add the clear.

I used the exact same paint on my calipers on my older car without clear as well. Just primed and painted. The only part that chipped was a section where I wasn't able to get all the grease off the caliper so I am confident that this paint will last just as long. But I definitely will be updating this thread in a couple of months or so to let you guys know if the paint held up.
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