OK- I'm taking the plunge and I'm planning on painting the MT Classic locks black this weekend. I'm going to leave the center caps, lugnuts, and ring chrome. The wheels themselves are aluminum with no clearcoat. I ordered a few cans of satins black wheel paint from Eastwood, and a few cans of wheel clearcoat as well.

Any ideas on what prep need to be done before painting a set of aluminum rims?

Also, has anyone rattlecanned rims before? How was the finished product? Look pretty nice or disaster? THanks. -Josh

 

You might want to get a good primer?

 

I hit my A/R rims up with Dupli-Color wheel enamel, and as long as you don't hit it with brake cleaner its nice, the brake cleaner breaks the bod and it peels off. They look real nice, I did mine with the tires on so masking was the only headache. I hit mine up with 60 grit paper then worked my way down to steel wool, then cleaned them with xylol or paint thinner, and then prayed them. Mine look OK but the paint holds a lot more brake dust than the aluminum finish did.