Originally Posted by Ludacris

How to paint your wheels


What you will need
-Jack
-Jackstands
-Tire iron is handy but not necessary
-Duplicolor wheel paint in the color you choose (I used one can of "Graphite" for four wheels)
-Duplicolor wheel paint in clear
-Aircraft stripper ($4 can at Autozone)
-Plastic scraper (I actually just used some of those plastic knives they give you for cutting cakes)
-Wheel brush with plastic bristles (comes in handy)
-Masking tape
-Index cards (I used 3x5)
-400 grit sandpaper

Steps

1. Take the wheels off the car.
2. Wash/dry the wheels throughly.



3. Once dry, spray on the aircraft stripper in an even coat. It is ok to get some on the tire, just don't let it sit too long and wipe it off with a paper towel. Try to use some protective rubber gloves, if you get any aircraft stripper on your skin it will burn like hell.
4. Wait anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on weather conditions for the stripper to work. The paint should be soft and easy to scrape off and look like this...



5. Once you scrape all the clearcoat/paint off that you can brush off the excess shavings, etc. with your wheel brush and repeat steps 2-4.
6. Wash/Dry wheels again.
7. Get the 400 grit sand paper and sand down the wheels till the painting surface is nice and smooth.
8. Wash/Dry wheels again.
9. Put the index cards in the gap between the tire and wheel like this...



this is done to prevent overspray onto the tire.
10. Spray on LIGHT and EVEN coats of paint. Wait for the paint to dry completely before spraying on another coat. I sprayed on 5 coats of the actual paint followed by 3 coats of clearcoat.



11. When your last coat of clearcoat is dry you are done, get the wheels back on your car and enjoy.

Tips:

1. Be careful with the aircraft stripper, you do not want to get this on your skin, in your eyes, etc. it burns like hell. I'd recommend at least wearing rubber protective gloves to prevent the stripper to get on your fingers when you are spraying on the aircraft stripper/scraping off the paint. Try to wear glasses and a face mask too.
2. Do this during DRY weather, moisture in the air screws with the way the wheels dry and makes the painted wheels bumpy. We had to sand the wheels down and do another coat bc of this. It also lengthens the drying time dramatically...from a couple minutes to over an hour.
3. If you wanted to leave the lip bare metal you would (when scraping the paint off the wheels) need to scrape the lip area down to BARE METAL. Leave no paint or clearcoat on the area at all. I used a sturdy metal chisel to do the job.
4. This thread can be helpful...read through it, there are some pics of wheels painted different colors.

http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=316500