"stripping paint from my z1r wheel - E-Z!" no dude

I thought surely it would be much easier to strip the old paint from my Z1R wheels with a chemical paint remover than sand blasting or media blasting. No way dude. I'm hoping I was wrong, I'm hoping someone's gonna tell me "it's faster and easier by sand or media blasting."

HERE'S WHAT THE FRONT WHEEL LOOKED LIKE WHEN I STARTED:




THIS IS AFTER USING PAINT REMOVER 4 TIMES ON THE OLD PAINT. STILL NOT PERFECT.








I worked on the dang front wheel over 3 days, applying the paint remover, taking it off. Nooks and crannies were the humongous time consumer. I used a kitchen-type (highly coarse of course) I used a kitchen-type of steel wool pad to remove each coat of paint remover. So the surface to be painted is plenty rough.


QUESTIONS
1) would sand blasting or glass bead blasting be faster for doing my back wheel?

2) what else does my front wheel need before I paint it, besides a generous bath of lacquer thinner to elimate any residues?




HERE'S A STOCK WHEEL -- THIS IS WHAT I WANT MINE TO LOOK LIKE WHEN FINISHED

No easy way to strip wheels. media blasting is probably easier if you have access but still not easy or quick.

a guy told me once paint is the best primer. With that being said scuff em up prime and paint then sand your ribs

depending on how you are painting them thats the easiest and best method imo. if you are using a paint system ie: House of Color, PPG, Dupont you need a compatible substrate (start with bare metal)

if your gonna spray bomb then clear scuff prime and paint works like a charm.

Are you going to paint, powder coat or polish them?

4TheKZ1000 wrote: Are you going to paint, powder coat or polish them?

First I'm going to use a buffing wheel, buffing compound and a drill to polish the outermost rim edges like the stock wheels are.

Then my plan was to rattle-can them satin black, several coats.

Automotive-grade paint. ENAMEL paint. The expensive kind I can buy in the local automotive paints company -- this is a supplier to body shops, this is good expensive paint.


Sand after the first couple coats.


Have I ever painted wheels before? NOPE.

I do not even know if I should put a clear coat or two after the base color is applied.

I do not know how many layers of satin black to spray on either.

Be sure to ask the paint supplier what the correct primer is for the alloy wheels. Ed

650ed wrote: Be sure to ask the paint supplier what the correct primer is for the alloy wheels. Ed

I trust you guys a LOT more than I trust someone who needs to sell something because that's his job.

The cool thing about this forum is we get opinions straight from practitioners.
I've been looking online tonight because this is the first mag wheel I've ever painted and it boils down to this from what I'm reading -- let me know if it sounds wrong:

- figure out if you will have a shiny polished edge on the wheel -- which I do
- dry-sand from 220 to 600 the edge your gonna polish
- wet sand from 600 to 2000 that area you want polished
- using automotive mask-off tape (you can apparently get it at most auto stores like O'Reilly etc.),
cover the area you just sanded with mask-off tape so no paint gets on it


- use a coarse (purple) scuffing pad to roughen the part of the wheel your gonna paint
- use a blue shop towel and put acetone on it and wipe down the wheel after you scuff it to get the residue off
- use a 'tack cloth' after the acetone to get the last residue particles off the wheel before painting



- primer it if you want but apparently primer for a cast wheel is not needed - I'm guessing its due to the rough coarse surface that cast wheels have? Don't know. But if you wanna use primer do it now.


- spray on 1 light coat of your base color paint then wait 10 minutes. Put on a 2nd light coat then wait 10 minutes. Put a 3rd light coat of your base color (mine will be a satin black base) then wait 10 minutes. If the paint isn't all even hit it with a 4th light coat and you're done with the base color.



- now follow the same light spray-wait 10 minutes process for the clear coat, put on 4 layers of clear.


- remove the mask-off tape and use metal polish to polish the shiny edge you wet sanded earlier.
DONE.


Now it didn't say what KIND of paint and clear so I'm gonna go with an automotive enamel for my base color then 2-part urethane clear coat.


Since this is the 1st time I done this I aint gonna piss myself if it aint perfect. I'll just cuss a bit.

If you are going for a resto, I wouldn't sand the ribs on the spokes. They have a machined surface that needs to be masked off before you paint them. If you paint over them and then sand the paint off, you'll lose the factory machined surface. Not to mention all the sanding to get the surface smooth. PITA. I'd mask it off.

If it were me I would use a primer, even though the wheel has a rough surface it still needs a primer....especially alloy. There are alloy specific primers, UPol is a brand I have used with good results.
Only my 2 cents as I have never sprayed a wheel before but have done lots of other alloy stuff

I haven't tried it this way personally, but I found a post in the archives called:
Aluminum wheels - rims: a story and a process for refinishing - clean, polish and paint
by Salvy from 2005.
the pictures look like he had awesome results this way, and I planned on doing mine the same way until I changed my mind.
It may help with what you're trying to do....

I just checked fedex,they have your frame pieces leaving lexana(spell check :laugh: )Kansas yesterday in a really big shop towel box! :laugh:
Im thinking it should be at your house in san jose sometime tomorrow.
They must figure shipping by the mile,I dropped it off sat in Omaha then it went to iowa.
Then it went to Kansas to go to calitornia probably via south Carolina! :sick: :woohoo:

well now it shows it having reached sacramento earlier today at around 2pm,so maybe it will be there tomorrow.
So much for on time delivery! :woohoo: