[Project] Chrome C5 Z06 -> Chrome C5 Z06 35thLE

[94_LT1_Z28]

I'm planning on painting my rims to take car of the pitting sides of my Z06 rims during spring break. I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me before I try and do it, like how I should prep the wheels before I try to paint them. I'm trying to do this without spending that much money, so taking them in for the most part is out of the question.

I figured i could tape off all the chrome I want to stay on, remove as much of the chipping chrome as I can, rough up the surfaces of what I'm going to paint, and paint and clear them with a high-temp paint.

I had the rims quoted for re-chroming and it was around $100-125 per rim so that is out of the question... I only paid $400 for the rims and tires together and I have to buy a new tire this spring so I wanna save my money for that instead.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[94_LT1_Z28]

My plan is sort of to combine all of these together:


+


To get something like this (except chrome C5's):

[ICEPICK]

scotch brite pads for roughing up the chrome for paint, but check powder coating. if you can take a week without wheels there is a guy up in bay city area that is real good with prices.

http://www.custompowderkote.com

[LS1Phoenix]

Dupli-Color High Performance Wheel coating works great. It comes in silver or black and it's pretty cheap. I used a fine grit sanding block, put about 3-4 coats of the wheel coating and 3-4 coats of clear coat. The rims looked brand new.

[LS1Phoenix]

I found a pic of one of the wheels I did.

[Casey]

Dupli-Color High Performance Wheel coating works great. It comes in silver or black and it's pretty cheap. I used a fine grit sanding block, put about 3-4 coats of the wheel coating and 3-4 coats of clear coat. The rims looked brand new.

Ditto on that. I did the same thing with a previous car that I sold and the wheels looked BRAND freakin new afterwords.

[TSTONE]

im interested in seeing how this works out - im thinking about painting the centers on mine

[94_LT1_Z28]

I hope it works out good... I'm gonna take pictures of every step of the process. I'm gonna be painting the center caps black too, because my brother wants black centercaps for his Z06 rims, so he's gonna give me his chrome ones cause my chrome ones are in rough shape. I was gonna use the centercaps as my test subject before I go balls deep and try painting my rims

[94_LT1_Z28]

Talked to my dad about painting my rims the other day. He thought it would be a good idea, he saw how bad they are when he took one of them to get me a new tire (happy birthday whoo-hoo!!). He told me he has had some experience painting rims that were once chrome, so I guess thats good news. I'm gonna start the tape-off / scuffing either tomorrow or tuesday, but I probably wont paint until it starts to get a little bit warmer outside. I'll try and take some detailed pictures to go along with the whole process

[JoeliusZ28]

http://www.qccoatings.com/

that place does REALLY good work - im going to have my 35ths done there eventually.

[94_LT1_Z28]

http://www.qccoatings.com/

that place does REALLY good work - im going to have my 35ths done there eventually.

I'm worried about getting them powdercoated because the rivets on my rims are actually just plastic pieces so I'm afraid they're gonna melt or something

[DETROITMUSCLE]

holy shit those guys are walking distance from me and I never knew it. Looks like I may have to make a trip over there.

[DETROITMUSCLE]

Just in case your considering powder coating I just dropped off something at qc coatings a minute ago. I'll post pics when they are done.

[94_LT1_Z28]

Ok so we started a little behind schedule, but one rim is undergoing paint... I will have pics later

[94_LT1_Z28]

So here's what we have so far. This is what the rims looked like before paint.



As you can see in this picture, this is the problem I have with them. The sides of the spokes and the backs were starting to pit and chip. Our solution was to paint them black so they would no longer do so.


The process we took went as follows:

1.) Wash rims with soap and water, try to get all of the dirt off you can.

2.) We started to try and remove as much chipping chrome off the rims as we could with a razor blade. Then, wipe down remaining dirt, oil, and any other grime with lacquer thinner (originally we were going to use acetone for its strength, but since my rims have plastic rivets on them, we played it safe so they wouldn't be destroyed. If there is no plastic on your rims, use acetone.)

3.) After cleaning, tape off section you don't want to get paint on. The way we did it was paint all of the backs of the rims first because we were unsure how we were going to proceed wit painting the spokes. For this we used Rustoleum gloss black spray paint.


4.) We decided it would be easier to carefully freehand the sides of the spokes. We still taped off the tops just in case. First, we scuffed the sides with a fine sandpaper just to make sure the paint would stick. For the details around the rivets, we used a q-tip to both paint and wipe off any paint we got on the rivets. For this we used Ace Hardware gloss black paint. (Sort of a Rustoleum type paint that comes in a small can)

The finished product of rim #1 came out like this. It's really hard to take a good picture since the rims have chrome on them still, but you get the idea.



And finally I'm on the way to realizing my dream of C5 Z06 35thLE rims

If you have any questions about the process feel free to ask. I just had lasik eye surgery yesterday so I can't look at the screen for too long cause it might hurt, so anything that isn't clear now I'd be happy to explain later