Clear coat failing hard on stock rims

wretched73

wretched73

New member
Apr 18, 2012
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Hey all,

I was wondering about the best way to go about cleaning up my rims. The clear coat is failing hard on 3 out of 4 of them and the 4th doesn't look great. My initial thought is to sand off the clear and polish them up. But how will this look with the stock center cap? How well will they match? Would I be better off just sanding off the clear coat, polishing, then clear coating again?

I don't have the money for new rims so that is not an option. I am open to any and all ideas. The cheaper route is looking best to me right now but I'm just in the idea gathering stage of this project.

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That last pic looks like the clear's already gone and the rim is getting oxidized pretty hard. Since they're already pretty shot, I'd give the sanding/polishing a try to see how you like it. If it doesn't look that great, you can always go to Orielly's/AutoZone/Advance/whatever's near you or check online and get one of the Duplicolor wheel re-finish kits. They're like ~$50-75 and will do 4 wheels. It actually works really well, one of my coworkers just did it to a set of M3 wheels and they came out awesome. He got the bright silver, which would actually look pretty stock on your rims
 
I'm not set on keeping a stock look. Just don't have the balls to paint them black or another color without knowing if they would look good on the truck like that

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I think you can order plasti-dip in silver and gun metal grey now. You could always upgrade or find someone selling a good set cheap.
 
Huck said:
That last pic looks like the clear's already gone and the rim is getting oxidized pretty hard. Since they're already pretty shot, I'd give the sanding/polishing a try to see how you like it. If it doesn't look that great, you can always go to Orielly's/AutoZone/Advance/whatever's near you or check online and get one of the Duplicolor wheel re-finish kits. They're like ~$50-75 and will do 4 wheels. It actually works really well, one of my coworkers just did it to a set of M3 wheels and they came out awesome. He got the bright silver, which would actually look pretty stock on your rims
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This. Just sand them down and repaint them a bright silver color. Whatever you decide to do DO NOT PAINT THEM BLACK. All black wheels can gdiaf.
 
Do like all the cool kids around here and paint the faces of the spokes silver and everything else black. Super classy. One guy even painted little black dots all the around the lip to look like beadlocks. Its so fucking cool.
 
Don't bother with plastidip. With the ligher colors, brake dust will embed itself in the dip and it'll look shitty after a couple weeks. Ask me how I know :bertstare:

Do the duplicolor stuff, it's super easy and like I said, their bright silver will look very close to stock

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I'm gonna try sanding and polishing one of them tomorrow and see how it looks. I like the dupli color paint idea but I have to sand the clear coat off before doing that anyway so might as well try polishing them

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wretched73 said:
I'm gonna try sanding and polishing one of them tomorrow and see how it looks. I like the dupli color paint idea but I have to sand the clear coat off before doing that anyway so might as well try polishing them

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THOSE WHEELS ARE MACHINE FINISHED SO IT WILL BE HARD TO DUPLICATE THAT FINISH

I've refurbished some of my wheels or repolished them to a high luster finish myself. Mostly all OEM wheels have a clear coat over the finish. Strip the clear coat first, usually the paint strippers at Autozone aren't too strong but give them a try. If the clear coat is removed and the damaged spots are removed then just re-clear the wheel. But if you aren't able to remove the damage under the clear coat then I can't give you any advice since machine finish is real hard to duplicate with out having proper equipment. I've been trying to do that a set of 17's I have myself but I haven't since machine finish is hard to duplicate.
 
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Also, be careful to not get any paint stripper in between the spokes cause they're painted gray, unless you want to respray them.
 
I started on one wheel today. I am going to sand and polish them. So far it looks real good. I'll post pics after i finish the first wheel. That should happen sometime this week. I just need a few more bits for my dremel to get into some of the harder to reach areas

Edit: I am not hell bent on keeping them looking completely stock
 
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I guess putting myself in horrible credit card debt would be the American way....

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I'm looking at end of July/ beginning of August. I'm tempted to have him clean up the rust on my doors too. So I'm saving up a bit more.

Why is yours going there?

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