Painted Pro4X Wheels

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