How To Refinish Wheels Using Dupli-Color High Performance Wheel Paint

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These BBS wheels used to have an amazing dark chrome finish. Then one day it decided to peel off like an onion skin. I spent several years testing out different paints and even tried sanding them by hand to get that mirror finish again–no luck. I could have had them powdercoated but the high temps aren't always a safe choice with aluminum, even if it is forged. Getting new ones was out because a.) they don't make the 10" plasma version of the BBS RKs any longer and b.) I was not going to drop an extra $500+ each for wheels I already had. I had no choice but to give it one last shot and try out the Dupli-Color paint.

Underneath that shiny coat is an impossibly hard finish that would have taken me years to sand down! So I sent the wheels to Dan at Atlas Media Blasting. He sent them back perfectly clean and at a very reasonable price. I could have had them painted professionally but then I wouldn't have had the chance to do it myself. Where's the fun in that?

Highlights

So what do you need to know if you're thinking about painting your wheels? First, if you don't have this crazy plasma coat on your wheels or any type of chrome you can get by in half the steps. All you'll need to do is sand down with 320-grit sandpaper and then apply your paint and clear.

What You'll Need

Wheels To Paint: If they are painted from the factory they will be much easier to prep (unlike mine). Any chrome or aluminum clear coat will need to be sanded or blasted off.

Primer: Only if you are painting on bare metal or plan to make some repairs to the wheel.

Duplicolor High Performance Wheel Coat: On average two cans of a color are enough for four wheels (for example: two cans for base coat and two cans for clear). A common place to get this paint is at Autobarn.com

Gloves, Goggles and Mask/Respirator: This stuff can mess you up after a while...make sure you have good ventilation.

Degreaser: Simple green is a good choice.

Tack Cloth: Or Dupli-Color prep wipes (or both!).

Sandpaper and/or Sanding Block: Dupli-Color recommends 320-grit. I like the 3M sanding blocks you find in hardware or automotive stores because they last a long time and are good for rounded edges.

Dust-free Area: I almost built my own paint booth out of PVC pipe and plastic sheets but I was too lazy. If you think you'll be painting a lot of things in the future, and want to give it a shot, you can read the wikiHow article on building your own paint booth.

Index Cards and Blue Painter's Tape: The index cards making it much easier to paint the wheel while the tires are still mounted. You can use tape to help keep the index cards in place or mask off areas you don't want to paint like a machined lip.

Applications

The easiest wheels to paint are ones that are already painted as opposed to chrome or aluminum ones. Most aluminum wheels have a clear coat on them. You will need to sand that coating off and then apply an etching primer as demonstrated in the video.

Tips, Tricks and Other Resources

What does "Media Blasting" mean? The short definition: it's like sandblasting but with beads that vary in size and abrasiveness. "Media" is just another term for these beads.

Notes and Warnings

If you do use an etching primer be careful it has acid in it and can damage your eyes. Even if you don't use this type of primer it's always a good idea to wear eye protection.

Original Transcript

Unedited and probably full of typos!

Locked away in an old storage area were a set of rare, expensive, and ultra-light wheels. They used to be everyone's favorite thing about my car but here they sat practically rotting away.

The dark chrome coating that made these BBS RKs so attractive did not last more than a few years. I was determined to bring these wheels back to life without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars. You get to see how I did it...

Here's what we need to get started. Some degreaser, a few types of primer, two cans of our dark base coat, two cans of our silver coat and two cans of clear.

We're also going to need duplicolor prep wipes, sanding materials, tack cloth, gloves, eye protection and masks.

The original coating was too difficult to sand manually so I sent the wheels to Dan at Atlas Media Blasting. Dan stripped them down to bare aluminum using fine sand-like beads. This gives us a perfect starting point.

Before we apply any primer or paint we need to get the wheels spotlessly clean. A little Simple Green and a soft mitt help clean every edge. After rinsing they should air dry.

Do a final prep using a tack cloth to get rid of any dust.

The self-etching primer has acid in it so break out the goggles and mask for the this and the rest of the steps. And make sure you are working in a well-ventilated area.

Apply one or two even coats to the bare metal. This primer will bite into the metal creating a glue between the wheel and later coats.

Since the media blasting took the wheel down to a casting texture it's going to be tough to get a completely smooth finish. I used some filler primer to fill in the rough surface and then in the next step we'll sand it down just a little. These are difficult wheels to paint because there are so many edges. After a first pass I laid down the wheels and looked for any green areas that I missed.

Go ahead and sand down the filler primer coat. I like to use these 3M sanding blocks because they last a long time and can get in tight spaces. You could go smoother but Duplicolor recommends using 320 grit right on the can.

So now I am going to use another piece of tack cloth to get rid of all of the sanding dust before I put another filler primer coat. You could also wash the wheel and wait for it to dry but as you can see it's already getting dark!

Here's our wheel after the final coat of filler primer. We're using the duplicolor prep wipes to remove any traces of grease before applying our first base coat.

Using Duplicolor's High performance wheel coating you'll want to start off painting all of the curves and corners. This is a very difficult wheel to paint considering all of the spokes. I turned the wheel frequently to make sure I got every inch.

You can paint the inside of the wheel if you want. After you get a solid light coat wait for it to dry and then repeat this step.

So here's what two coats of graphite look like. Why didn't I just use four coats of silver? Well, I sprayed a couple of samples and silver by itself was too bright for my car. By having a darker base coat I can get a slightly darker silver like you see here. Again, I am using light frequent coats until I get a nice even finish. If the paint seems dusty make sure you are spraying perpendicular to the surface.

Here's the final result before clear coat. A silver with a hint of gunmetal behind it. Considering the rough starting point of the wheel I was happy with the smoothness of the finish.

Now we're wrapping it up with a nice medium-wet coat of clear. I started out with a light dusting just like in the previous steps and then started moving the can a little slower to get a wetter coat. Again, I tried to keep the can as close to perpendicular to the edge as possible.

After two medium coats of clear we're done!

I went over to tirerack.com, ordered some new wheels and then had them shipped to the highest rated installer in my area which was German Auto Specialist. I guess it was fitting since BBS is a german company, right? I'll have to pay them another visit when I get an M3.

They did a great job not damaging the wheels and even let me film the process for you. I highly recommend you call around and find an experienced shop. I let an inexperienced person install my wheels 2 years ago and I was furious when they left two gashes on the face of the wheel.

After sliding the tire around the rim, Tim flipped the whole assembly and filled it up. With some quick hands he installed the valve and then took the wheel to the balancer. If you buy wheel and tire packages they usually do all of these steps before shipping them.

It's been almost four months since I've installed the new tires and refinished the rims. And here's how they are holding up. It's nice to have that deep dish look again.

Many of you will start with a stock, painted wheel. If that's the case you only need to wash, sand, rewash and then apply your duplicolor paint. Also, you'll probably still have the tires mounted. Purchase a set of index cards to protect the tires from paint. Here's an example from jamwong, a member on the clubrsx.com forums.