Refinishing peeling stock TRD wheels via stripping and Duplicolor silver wheel coating

Just thought I'd share my experience refinishing my peeling stock TRD wheels. After looking for a few months for a nice set of take offs within driving distance and not having any luck, I decided to try refinishing mine.

The key differences between my method and several others here are that I used aircraft remover to strip the old paint off the wheels, and Duplicolor Silver Wheel Coating to repaint them. I prefer a stock look, so I didn't want to do the "Graphite" color that several others here have done. As you will read below, I do not recommend the Duplicolor Silver after doing this project.

Starting Point - Looks like crap


Stripping the wheels
I only needed 1 container of Rustoleum Aircraft Remover to strip all 4 wheels. It required 3 applications per wheel. First I removed the center caps. Then I used index cards to keep the stripper off the tires as much as possible. However, I knew I was replacing the Rugged Fails right after this project, so I didn't go crazy trying to keep the stripper off the rubber. If you choose this method, and your tires are not throw-aways, I strongly recommend that you to have the tires dismounted. If you rotate your spare around, you can just do one wheel at a time. Although the stripper didn't seem to affect the rubber, it's very possible that I weakened it significantly. Nobody wants a blowout at 70mph.


You will want to wear gloves and eye protection when using the stripper. It is seriously nasty stuff and if you get it on your skin you will feel the burning within seconds. Don't ask me how I know. This is after the first application. I used a chip brush and I would say it only takes about a minute or two for the stripper to get the wheels this far. Crazy.


In between applications I took a small scrub brush to loosen up as much paint as possible. Then I blasted it with a garden hose, making sure the stream of water was aimed such that the nasty stripper would end up in my idiot neighbor's yard and not on my skin. This pic was either after the 1st or 2nd application:


It took 3 applications total to get rid of all the old paint, but I spent much more time dealing with the index cards than I did scrubbing or waiting for the stripper to work. If I had the tires off the stripping would have been a very quick process. Here's a totally stripped rim. The textures you see are pitting and also marks from the small wire brush I used to get rid of some of the more stubborn paint. I knew I was priming and painting, so I wasn't concerned about the scratches.


You can see that the face of the rims are actually polished aluminum. I knew I needed to get rid of the shiny if I wanted any chance of the new paint sticking, so I took a palm sander and 180 grit sandpaper. This worked very fast, although each rim wore out a sanding disc.


Ready for primer:


I had this primer lying around from a different project. Good enough. I did 2 coats.


Primed:


This is the paint I used:


And this is after 3-4 coats. I can't remember but I just followed the instructions on the can.


The center caps were pretty easy, but a bit time consuming. I used a heat gun to soften the plastic tabs on the back of the Toyota emblem. Then I popped the emblem off with a small screwdriver. Then I hand sanded all the paint off with 180 grit. The sanding took about 10 minutes per cap. Annoying, but not terrible.


At this point I think I forgot to take pictures because I was excited to see the result. I used epoxy to reattach the Toyota emblems to the center caps. I also applied 2 or 3 coats of clear gloss. Whatever the can said.


I did not want a glossy look, but I did want to protect the paint. More on that soon...

Here is the finished product:


As it sits today with new Cooper AT/W Tires:


Full size image here: http://imgur.com/5sTEpXO

Now, here's the thing about the Duplicolor Silver. The pics don't show it, but this stuff is very easily scratched. When I was putting the wheels back on the truck my wrench slipped once and put a nice gash on one of them. Touch up is not easy because of the time involved in masking everything. I have also found that the rims are hard to clean. Grease and crap from the tire place took a lot of scrubbing to get off, and removing brake dust has not been easy either.

Also, the silver paint has a lot of "flakes" in it which I think are supposed to give it a nice sparkle, but I found it damn near impossible to get the flakes to come out of the can with any degree of consistency, no matter how much I shook it. If you look at the rims up close you can see lots of inconsistency in the texture. It's "good enough" for me, but frustrating given the time spent on this project. On the other hand, this was not at all expensive:

Project cost:
1 jug Aircraft Stripper: $14
3 cans Wheel Coating: $7 each = $21
1 can Wheel Clear Gloss: $7
1 can primer: $6
Sanding pads, epoxy, etc: ~$15
Total: $63
Time spent: I'd guesstimate 12-15 hours but I did it over the course of a few evenings. You could probably plow thorough and do it in a day if you wanted to.

 

Nice write up, I think maybe you need more clear coats to protect the paint from being scratched and prob be easier to clean..? you can get a matte clear finish,as to not get that shiny look ? but yours looks good nice work.. I think I'd just plastidip mine LOL easy and quick...

Side note how ya like those Cooper AT/w tires ?

 

I've seen someone else use an alloy whee specific primer and they seemed to have no issues that I can remember offhand. Looks factory from here at least. Good job.

 

Yes maybe more clear would be a good thing. I may put a few more coats on in the spring.

So far I'm on the fence about the Cooper AT/W. If they are good in the snow I'll be happy. Right now they seem to have quite a bit more rolling resistance than the Rugged Trails, so I'm noticing a drop in power. The weight is only 1 lb more per tire, and the size is the same, so I know it's not either of those things. On the other hand, they are very grippy on dry and wet pavement. I'm in NY so the snow will be here soon, and then I'll issue "the verdict".

 

Thanks for posting this and apologies for the necro-post. The wheels on my '06 are looking about the same and I'm trying to decide what to do with them. I have a couple questions about your work.

1. Did you do anything with the inside? It seems like a lot of the blistering starts at the inside edge of the 'spokes.'
2. Any further thoughts two years in? How is the paint holding up?

Regarding how easy it was to mar the paint, I think that some rattle can paints take a long time to fully harden. I'd be really careful with them when the paint is fresh.

I'm considering

• By a set of rims. I see a set on CL that look decent for about $100.
• Refinish what I have. But I don't like hard work quite that much. I doubt I'd like what it would cost to have someone do them.
• Just ignore the crappy looking paint as long as the tires still hold air. I'm not looking to enter a concours any time soon. maybe I should scrape off the loose paint and hit it with some primer to slow down further corrosion.

Right now the wheels are off the truck. I'm thinking of replacing the tires come spring, but these still look like they have a lot of tread. They're hard as rocks though and on wet pavement I really have to feather the throttle to avoid wheel spin.

I'd appreciate comments from any others whoi have experience with this.

 

Sorry just saw this. I did not mess with the inside.

Honestly the paint has not held up well at all, in addition to being very difficult to clean. If you do it I would recommend many coats of clear gloss when you're done and maybe that would protect it. I have been thinking about redoing these with grey plasti-dip.

Wish I had better news, but my best advice is to not do it like I did it lol

 

Had some civic rims redone, they were stripped, inserts painted black, aluminum finish buffed, and a ton of clear coat.

 

No worries - thanks for the info. I'm sorry to hear it didn't work better for you but now I know that I would need to do something different.

 

I just did mine with some rattle can auto primer and Rust-Oleum hammered finish after my buddy blasted them. Granted they are only for snow tires, but here's hoping they hold up decent.