Rims/Covers... Why Chrome/Silver? Paint 'Em Instead.

Up until... say the mid-60's, cars came with painted rims, usually not
in the body color. Even the first muscle cars came with painted "sport
wheels," IIIRC. At that time, putting magnesium or alloy rims on a car
was an expensive, but distinguishing custom touch.

I guess in the intervening 40+ years, car makers "got the message;"
chrome silver wheels go with any color, and it's cheaper to only stock
one color rim for every car in a model line. I also suspect the increasing
number of cars with of at least front disc brakes and the attendant
corrosive disk brake dust argues that non-painted rims are a good idea.

Even now, an all too frequent customizing touch is to add chrome or
silver-colored alloy wheels to a car. But why? Virtually every vehicle
on the road now-a-days has chrome or silver rims or covers. It truly is
the " least common denominator" of possible wheel treatments. To my
eye, chrome/alloy rims are now distinguishable only for their
constantly increasing diameter, and the outlandishness of their design.

My approach then, to give Amapola a
unique distinguishing appearance has been to reach back into the past
and paint -- actually powder coat -- the OEM Touring rims in a color as
close as possible to body color. "There's nothing new under the sun."
Here's the result -- single left-click to enlarge:



I like it. There's a look you won't see every day -- I'm hoping what with the
light use of the brakes, a clear overcoat, and at least monthly gentle
cleaning, brake dust corrosion won't be a problem.

(The photo location isn't so great, but ya' gotta dance with the Muse
when she makes one of her all too rare appearances... and the light is right.)

A last thought; on the Touring wheels you could just paint the covers.

 

KK6PD,

In short, the job was a five step process:
* chemically strip the OEM paint
* ScotchBrite the narrow rim edge band and mask it off
* base (metalflake) coat
* additional color coat
* unmask rim band and clear top coat over all.

Note: The entire rim got the three coat treatment excepting only the
rim edge band which is visible but also wraps over the lip of the rim
and extends about 1/2" on the bead seating surface.

I had it done here:

East Coast Powder Coat - North East, Maryland - Custom Powder & Ceramic Coating

Cost was $587. I'm really happy with their work.

There was much more to this job than this. I'll do a blow by blow and
post it in the next day or two.

 

Pat,

If you visit the Auto Amenity site that Boo posted, you will find that they
say the rings will not attach to the base, six-spoke wheel. However, they
do say that the rings will mount to the Touring wheel. metagray's photos
confirm this.

I can't find it right now, but I have seen additional pictures of the rings
fitted in another of the photo albums -- a green or blue car in Seattle,
I believe. IIRC, the poster said that the rings were really tight, almost
too tight as they used a soft-faced mallet -- I think -- to mount them,
and they could not be removed by hand. Also, I recall that in the pictures
I could see some small gap between the ring and the wheel rim.

When I was thinking on having my rims painted, I decided I wanted an
accent ring between the red of the rim and the tire. I considered the
chrome ring as a way to prevent curb damage. But as I'm also dechromeing
the car, the ring would need to be buffed out with ScotchBrite and then
clear coated. More hassle and additional expense than I wanted. So, I
opted for the ScotchBrite ring on the rim itself. Of course, now I need
to be very careful when parallel parking, etc. C'est la guerre!

 

Boo,

Thanks, that is the quote that I was looking for.