Brakes Wheels 1st Gen Tires Painting stock wheels?

I haven't painted any wheels but I believe Octaneguy has (aka Richard). If he doesn't see this thread maybe shoot him a PM

 

There is a lot of wheel paint on the market. As with anything you paint doing the prep work will net a netter end result.
Read the direction of the paint and use only the primer they recommend. Don't mix brands of paint.
If you are going with a body color paint you may have to go and get it mixed and apply it with a spray gun. There are kits that you can use to apply paint without a gun but the time you buy all this stuff you could have a good Paint?body paint them up for you?

This is one of many helpful sites:

How to refinish wheels using Dupli-Color wheel paint | Video « Wonder How To

 

Good video Lynn.

Jim

 

R98's can be disassembled and the centers painted.

One thing I will caution you about painting MINI wheels...they use an expoy primer. That's a great base to work from, if you can get them blasted. Rattle-canning them, no matter how well you do it, will never hold up like what a bodyshop uses.







and another repaint to gloss white when I sold them:



I had WheelsAmerica custom paint Nathan's HRE's... (well, he did it on my behalf). When I went to sell them, I stripped and polished the lips.

Before:



After:


I also did a set of Enkei's....came out GREAT (but chipped rather easily):

 

Rattle canned is an art if applied properly can achieve both the look and durability of a pressure gun. The trick is the thickness and evenness of application. Canned paint needs to be re-coated many times over and wet sanded in between sets. Once finished a rattle can paint job can even be color sanded for finish quality surpassing most all shop paint jobs. You can also get extra protection with a standard clear coat or very durable wheel clear coat.
Polished lips and painted between the spokes rattle can Semi Black or some call it Satin Black shot in Satin Clear Coat for brake dust protection.

 

CHKMINI stripped my faded white holeys, repainted them and then clearcoated them. He is a Dupont paint specialist. Maybe you could ask him for info. He's in the MOM Club on here.

 

Painted OEM color by my "usual" body shop:






After one full season, still looking new!...

 

I took my web-spokes apart and had the centers powder coated... it's a bit sturdier.

 

The most durable paint will be a powdercoat. Things to consider with painted wheels.

Wheels get abused when you change the tire.
Wheels get abused by brake dust (leave the dust on there for weeks and it'll become permanent)
Wheels get hit by flying objects from the ground

If you want to keep your wheels for a long time, consider powdercoating. I've had my wheels for 3 years now and they are doing pretty well, but after one wheel needed straightening, and the lugholes on all 4 needed to be drilled out to fit on my R55, they are showing wear. But they still look great, and this is all for having gotten the wheels painted correctly the first time.

My wheels when they were brand new looked like this


But after a year the paint flaked off and looked like this


So I had them chemically stripped


And then powdercoated two colors, first red, then black


Then got some new tires (Nitto Neo Gens)


Mounted on the MINI

But first needed new brakes



Then sold the R53 and 2 years later and bought this R55 Clubman S with the same wheels.

 

A misconception by many is the belief that powder-coating is stronger than liquid paints.
Powder coat is applied thicker than liquid paint. The process of curing by heat makes it scratch and chip resistance. But it can still chip just like liquid paints. The powder coating process generally when compared to average liquid painting procedure makes it better scratch and chip resistant. But the finish quality unless further procedures are done is not as good as with liquid painting.
Liquid paint can be applied as thick as powder-coating and the finish have the same chip and chemical resistance as powder-coatings. Some liquid paints like 2 part Epxoy Paint although there are not as many color choices are much stronger than ether powder coating or standard liquid paints.

Both powder-coating and liquid paints can be removed with chemical paint removers like Jasco. Epoxy paint is very resistant to chemical paint removers and is much more difficult to remove on a painted object.

Generally liquid painting of most type of wheels is less expensive than powder coating.

Powder-coating on the other hand is a one day procedure?

So both have advantages and dis-advantage and neither is really better than the other.

 

two-piece and made by Ronal. Several people have painted them....hell, even MINI does a black version now

 

I had a set of BBS LM's powder coated in Space Blue.



More pics are here

 

FYI: the bolts on the web-spokes are supposed to be single use only, though nobody that I could find sells them.

I re-used mine, but I don't want to do it again. I hope a source is found!

 

BBS, OZ and Ronal always say that (I contacted BBS directly to answer the same question and got "one-time use only" and "no, we don't sell spares" as answers!). I'd suggest that re-using one time has shown to be ok but would agree I wouldn't make a habit of it.

My HRE's used titanium torx fasteners with generic nuts on the back.

 

The tool you need to take them apart is not that easy to find. The big box home improvement places don't carry it. I had to go a real old fashioned hardware store to get mine. I'd look to see what it is but all my tools are packed for a move it's buried.