I bought the car with crappy wheels - the paint was chipped, looking like a pinata
Finally decided and had the time to do some painting on them. Since I had the car hoisted on the jack stands to change the tranny fluid a week back, the back wheels came off for a little revamping.
I didn;t care much about getting paint on the rubber, since those tires will hit the junk yard soon.

Supplies:
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Cleaning - diluted PurplePower (it works miracles):
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Applied AircraftRemover goop:
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Removed all the drbris all the way down to bare aluminum:
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Cleaned up the wheels:
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Masked the rubber;I started with this:

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but it was a darn windy day, so it kept knocking off my index cards. I ended up with this setup:

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Gray Primer:
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First coat:

Second coat:

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Paint:
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First coat:


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Second coat:

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Final coat:
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Clearcoat - I used only 2 coats (got sick of painting):
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Look before:

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Look after:


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Got two more wheels to go.
I know it doesn;t look professional, or factory-like, but it is an improvement from the sore-eye the wheels used to look like.
Oh....and it surely beats spending hundreds or thousands on aftermarket fancy wheels, or worrying about offsets, spacers, fender rubbing, etc

chefro

 

I like the tiger stripes on the tire But seriously, the finished wheel looks great.

 

I was going to give you some $hit for a rattle can job, but those look good. Kudos, man. For restoring factory wheels, I think you did a real nice job and you should be proud of the results. Do me a favor and post how they stand up to a year of driving, including going through a winter.

 

Thanks guys!!!

I will post after the winter an update, but I had previous "experience" with the steel wheels on the Elantra.
I restored them the same way (minus the Aircraft Remover job) - plain black about 2 1/2 yrs back and they still look good. As a matter of fact, they look better than an OEM wheel I bought to make a full-size spare, which dulled out after one winter. My finish was better than theirs, unless is just the difference in paint (I used "glossy" vs whatever what cheap finish they put on that wheel). I ended up putting that one on the front, after wify had a bad flat tire which bent a bit the old rim (that one is a full-size spare now).
When I'll wash her, I'll just post some pics to see the difference - just for ***** and giggles.

HX, ... those tires have the treads poking through. I have new Contis in the shed which I'll put them on in the next week or so. Since the car was "benched" due to the engine work, I didn't have neither a chance, nor the reason to do the swap.
Again, tks guys.

cheers

 

good looking...I watched them restore wheels on wheeler dealers, and ever since I've thought I could do it on my own...

 

Gotta mask those bad boys off better next time. But the paint looks great.

 

I know. I didn't care much about the tires, since they're shaved and I'll replace them soon...I mean real soon. As soon as the tranny pan is back in, the first trip is actually to my friend's place who has a tire press.

Thanks.