Bullitt Wheel Painting?

[heffe2001]

I have a set of OEM bullitt wheels that have seen better days. They all have curb rash, and a few blemishes here and there on the spokes (a few spots have chunks out of the clear coat). I started repairing one of them a few weeks ago, and ended up having to remove the clear coat from the machined lip. I was able to repair that rim well enough to where you can't tell it had rash on it unless you get within a foot of the rim. I took some mothers and polished up the non-cleared machined part, and it looks much better than the ones that still have the clear.

My question is, if I wanted to repaint the spokes, should I strip off the paint that's there, or just sand and paint the centers? A few of the bad spots on the spokes are pretty large, and I'm not sure if I could sand that out and you not be able to tell it (really should be filled, it's not down to the metal, but the clear is completely gone there, you can easily feel the edge of the gouge). Stripping's no problem, just not sure if I'd be better off doing it or not. I'm also looking at going a shade or 2 darker (duplicolor graphite wheel paint).

These will never be show-quality wheels (my car will never be a show-quality car either, lol), but if I can get them looking good enough, it'll save me some bucks replacing them..

Also, if I do end up repainting them, I'm going to clear the spokes, but not sure if I should clear the machined rim or not. I'll have to keep polish on them if I don't, but they look so much better without clear...

This is the one I have done already. It's still wet from being rinsed off, but even if you saw it in person, you'd be hard-pressed to see the repairs on the lip. I'm also going to clean the insides and plastidip them black, and not going to have the knock-on weights used at all (plasti-dip AFTER wheel mount and balance, weights and all, lol). I'm also having to repair damage from the knockon weights. I've only got about 125 (one good tire amongst the 4, it's the one pictured below, probably has 50 miles on it) in the set of wheels, and I'd probably have about 50-60 in paint/stripper..

 

[Rallim]

I just taped off the lips, primered, and a couple top coats. I never cleared them, so I'm happy with how they've held up for not having any clear or anything like that.

probably the only closeupish picture I have

This ones well over a year later btw

 

[heffe2001]

That looks exactly like what I'm wanting to do. I still may do the stripping or sanding (I'm going to have to at least do some sanding on the spokes to fix the rought spots). I'm also using a wire brush on the back sides, mine are absolutely HORRIBLE. Once they're clean on the inside of the wheel, I was planning on using black plastidip on them, or possibly anthracite plastidip (I have 4 friggin cans of their true metal anthracite, and 2 cans of their aluminum, one way or another it'll look clean, lol). I figure if the inside gets messed up again, just pull off the dip, and redo the inside. I've seen a few like that and really liked the look.. Or would I be better off to just use regular paint??


Has anybody noticed any casting oddities on the inside of the wheels? I've got a few places that look like lumps, but they aren't something stuck to it, they are metal...

 

[5-oh-MUSTANG]

Dat Camber. Looks good.

 

[heffe2001]

That same wheel above painted with Dupli-Color wheel paint graphite color & then cleared (all but the rim anyway, and it's far from perfect, but it'll do till I can buy new wheels):