tidying up steel wheels

want2bmortgage3

i need new tyres asap but was thinking of sanding/ respraying the steel wheels before as they have some corrosion (but nothing too serious). has anyone here done this before, is it a difficult job, any tips and what products would you recommend?

also worth adding, the car is 17 years old so i'm not worried if the finish isnt 100%.

goldspanners

want2bmortgage3 wrote: »

i need new tyres asap but was thinking of sanding/ respraying the steel wheels before as they have some corrosion (but nothing too serious). has anyone here done this before, is it a difficult job, any tips and what products would you recommend?

also worth adding, the car is 17 years old so i'm not worried if the finish isnt 100%.

an option for a really good finish would be to get them shotblasted and plastic coated. roughly around £30 per wheel.
or you could sand them down your self, primer them and then paint them with silver wheel paint. practice your spraying and remember to mask off the tyres.

a guy who worked at the same place as me decided to spray his wheels, he did just that, he didnt even wash them before spraying never mind sanding, they ended up a real mess, tyres included!

mikey72

Hammerite Smooth finish looked as good as the original paint on my alloys, and would be fine on the steel wheels. Tougher than normal paint as well. Smooth finish does have a slight "hammerite" effect, I brushed in a circular direction, with the wheels off and flat, they dried with no brush marks visible, and a very slight (not noticeable) sparkly "hammerite" finish, that was more metallic to look at.

scbk

IMO if you're doing them silver you really want to spray them, brushed on silver never seems to come out well

Or you could paint them matt black and get a set of cheap trims for a bit of bling

AdrianHi

mikey72 wrote: »

Hammerite Smooth finish looked as good as the original paint on my alloys, and would be fine on the steel wheels. Tougher than normal paint as well. Smooth finish does have a slight "hammerite" effect, I brushed in a circular direction, with the wheels off and flat, they dried with no brush marks visible, and a very slight (not noticeable) sparkly "hammerite" finish, that was more metallic to look at.

+1 my thinking too.
I paint my exhaust tip with black smoothrite and you don't see brush marks.
Sand off any rust bubbles so you have a smooth surface and clean it first.
Found a picture I already had uploaded:

LandyAndy

I painted the wheels on a Herald years ago. A good sand down, a coat of Finnegan's No.1 and a coat of white Smoothrite (now called Hammerite Smooth) applied with a 1" brush. The results were more than adequate for a cheap car and the finish lasted a good few years althoough it did 'mellow' to off white with time.