** To moderators - The pics in this thread are hotlinked from my own personal webspace. I hope that is within the guidelines, if not, please contact me if there is a different way you'd like. **

Well, after getting a wild hair last night, I decided to paint my IROC-Z wheels today. I've just started, and wanted to post one so that all could see.

First off, my gold inserts looked fine IN THE PICS, but in real life, they were dull and very dirty. The paint was fading so bad that it looked like they were dirty all the time. I will ultimately be losing the gold accents on the car, and thought that Gunmetal w/ a metallic look would be nice.



Because this is a temporary solution, unless it appears to holdup very well, I went to Wal-Mart for some supplies.

I bought a can of general purpose primer spray paint as well as some Dupli-Color gunmetal paint. I also picked up some $.54 rolls of 1/2" masking tape.



I cleaned the wheels with water and then with alcohol and dried them. I elected not to scuff them up because mine were already scuffed to begin with.

Here are some pics of the process:





The next two are of the primer and then the paint. I made sure the primer covered all, therefore a couple coats were used. The paint REALLY looks nice in real life. It is dark and has some metal flake look to it. The spray nozzle was also really nice to use. I just had to make sure to use REALLY thin coats, as it had a tendancy to want to run.





After allowing the final coat of paint to dry for about 10 minutes, I peeled the tape and paper off and made sure that the paint itself didn't tear. Here are the results...

Tell me what you think!







The paint feels a little gritty. I'm curious as to what I should use... I'm thinking that once the paint cures, I'll put a nice thick coat of wax on them to make them smooth.

Later... I'm off to finish the rest of them!

 

none of the pics worked

 

Try now - I was missing a zero in each filename.

 

Wowee - looks good.

 

yes....very nice.....i like!!!!

 

Woah that kinda looks how they came when new and painted the dark color.

 

It does look like it came factory, huh...

The polished areas on the spokes are still original and untouched, but they are SOOO much more shiny with the gunmetal next to them... the gold made it all look dull...

Thanks for the compliments. It is pretty time consuming, but the outcome is worth it.

Here's my second one:



Its a little dark, but you can see it ok. I remembered that on the last one, I hadn't gotten a closeup of it.

I noticed on the last one that they seem to need some paint behind the spokes too. Apparently, there is paint in there... Anyway, I know, it looks $hit-a, but it does add some gray color behind the spokes and will not be noticable when on the car.



Later... Now its raining so it looks like the rest will be done tomorrow.

 

Looks like the same thing me and Camrs89 did to hos rims last summer...only thing was we sanded them smooth first.....that looks nice as hell man .....keep up the good work

 

Wow your car looks exactly like mine. I think you did an awesome job but I think I like the gold better.

Bill

 

I didn't dislike the gold, but it definately dates the car. Yes, it is an 80's car, but it doesn't necassarily(sp?) have to always look like one...

If the gold and the paint on the car was still in good shape, I'd probably have kept it, but.......

Thanks for the comments guys, keep 'em coming!

I just got the 4th one done... They look NICE IMHO. I'll get some better pics in the morning.

 

Looks real good, but I also would have gone for Gold again. I don't think it dates it... All the Subaru Imprezza's have the gold wheels. Looks good. But perhaps on a darker car the silver looks better... Indecisive me?

Good job man

 

MUCH better! I never liked the rims with gold accents.

 

i just recently polished my rims... i went back to gold ... i liked it at the start and when it was finished... but 3 days of nonstop rain they looked horrible, brake dust and road grim all over them... i could not even tell they were polished... so i think i am going to repaint them to black or gunmetal here soon... IMO from what i have seen then darkness of the paint brings out the polish

 

I personally like the look of the gold accented rims, but maybe I'm biased a little.