Stock wheel refinishing??

Have a question and wondering if anybody knows... I have fixed my minor engine troubles and am moving on to refinishing my wheels because they look like crap. I restore antique furniture and refinish furniture for a living so I have access to top of the line spray equipment. My question is that the 02 silver paint on my wheels seems to be chipping off or has worn away in places and I bought some duplicolor silver wheel coating...upon spraying it on the pigment content was not nearly high enough to cover these blemishes. Should I try some custom paint out of the spray gun and then clearcoat over it and if so what kind and where do you get the right color? Stock color is okay for me I just am not familiar enough with the products and have never done it before. Any suggestions?? I have read on the other posts that people are having great results with rattle cans but mostly these guys are going black. Has anyone had really good results going stock- if so what products did you use?? Thanks

 

I repainted a set of stock steelies on a previous Tacoma, painted them a dark metallic gray. Did some pretty good sanding on them first, plus put on a primer coat, then the color, then a couple of clear coats. They turned out great. I think if you want them to look good and last it just takes some prep work. I did it using Duplicolor wheel paint from Peb Boys.

 

Theres a shop by me called "alloy wheel repair" the guy claims when toyota does a warranty wheel repair they send them to him....

He will blast off the old chipping paint, have them re-milled with CNC on the outside face and will paint the inside parts back to stock grey, or any other color i want.

the catch... its $150 a WHEEL! yikes... but if i do it at the same time that i buy my new tires, he will mount and balance the new ones when he puts them back together, no charge. They need to take the tires off anyways.

So do i do it? $600 for 4 brand new looking wheels, and i will save myself $150-200 on the price of mounting my new tires i should be buying soon.

Do i stay with stock silver? i saw some TRD 16" wheels he did machined face with gunmetal grey paint, looked pretty slick. He was selling these for $125ea but i have 17" wheels, so i wasnt going to drop a size... I bet color matching the barcelona red inside my wheels could look hot too... not that i dont have enough red on there already.

thoughts???

 

I would definitely source some new take-offs

lots of people buy new trucks and go to bigger wheels and tires so you can find them in the local ads or ebay/craigs list stuff

you can buy brand new after market stock "looking" rims for the prices they charge to refinish the stock ones.

if you have steel rims just get them blasted and then repaint them with several coats of a good quality of automotive paint then clear coat them or leave them like that. they come out looking great and as mentioned above its all in the prep work as to how long it will last.

another option is to have them powder coated, its a lot more durable then paint is but might not hold up well to being scratched off if you use clamp on trim rings or hub caps

 

If you are wanting to do it at home just have your local store get you a can of matched color for you gun. I would rough them down and fill the minor imperfections in the paint with USC all metal body filler. Primer and paint. No need to dismount the tire. Deflate and use a deck or cards to keep the paint off the wheel. If you dont want to get a gun use this wheel paint. Comes out great and very close to factory color.