Black Wheels Project

[Nuformzdesign]

My project for this weekend was to paint the stock rims on my car a glossy black. I know there are plenty of How-To's on this sort of thing, but I wanted to post my steps and hopefully help out anyone interested in doing the same thing. This is a temporary project to hold me over until I get a new set of rims, so I did cut some corners.

Mods - I'm new here, if this isn't in the correct section, please move thread.

Starting with stock.


So, first off was to get the rims off of the car to clean and degrease them.

This did not take nearly as long as I thought, using a bucket of hot water and dish soap and some Armor All degreaser.

After that, I wet sanded with 400-grit paper to scuff up the finish and give the paint something to hold on to. I had some minor gutter rash on this one. I sanded the rash hard, but since this is only a temporary thing I wasn't worried about making it perfect.


After wet sanding, I used blue painters tape to mask off the tire, and wiped the whole thing down inside and out with an old tshirt soaked in lacquer thinner.


Time to start painting. I went to AutoZone and got some satin black wheel paint and also the same brand of clear coat. I had no previous experience with this brand, but it seemed to work just fine.


I started on the inside of the rim and put down a decent coat, and made sure to hit the edges of the spokes from the back. After that I moved to the front and worked my way around. The first coat was relatively light, just enough to cover the silver underneath. This was after the first coat.


I waited about 15 minutes before applying the second coat. If I followed the directions on the back of the can, the second coat would be another light one, followed by a third heavy wet coat. This would undoubtedly give the best result, but you would seriously end up using 2 full cans of paint per wheel. I made the second coat a heavy one, and it seemed to work out just fine. After waiting about a half hour, I started to apply the clear coat. Again, first coat light, wait 15 minutes, and a second heavy coat. The second coat of clear really made them pop.


I did not wet sand between coats. I probably could have used to do this, but I was worried about how to clean the wheels afterwards without messing up the paint that was already there, and ultimately, I don't think it made that much difference.

I also decided to paint the center caps. The little Mazda logo is a pain to get out, at least for me. After stabbing myself in the hand with a screwdriver, I said "Screw it" and just broke all the little tabs holding it in place. I also wet sanded both the caps and the logos, and wiped them down with lacquer thinner as well. Since I'm going for a white, black and red scheme, I grabbed a can of fire red paint for the caps


and used the black wheel paint for the Mazda logos


and then clear coated them. Same process as the wheels, 1 light coat, 1 heavy, then 2 coats of clear.

Since I broke all the tabs getting the logos out, I used some Gorilla glue to put them back into place after everything had dried.


After I gave everything about 12 hours to fully dry, I put the caps back into the wheels and mounted them back on the car.


After some washing and waxing, here are my final results:



I also painted the valve stem caps the same color red, which I think produced a nice result.

What I learned
In retrospect, I would likely begin the project with some other equipment. And by "other equipment" what I really mean is "a six-pack of beer" and "a friend". This ended up being a whole weekend project, and it took 6 cans of spray paint and 3 cans of clear coat to achieve the result. I would have definitely looked into powder coating if I had known what I was getting into at the start. It's not as cheap as I thought it would be to do it right, not to mention the degreaser, sandpaper, super glue, painter's tape, and everything else that's necessary to buy. All totaled, I think I spent about $120 on supplies and it took about 9 hours of my time altogether over 2 days. When doing the final coats of paint and clear, you really have to make sure to cover everything with a wet coat before any of it starts to dry. Otherwise the paint doesn't meld very well and instead of a smooth glossy surface, you get what looks like a dusty effect. In any case, I'm happy with the result and I hope this helps anyone who might be interested in doing the same thing.