weekend project

[gpetersen 0]

here is a pic of what the next weekend project will be

Edited June 19, 2011 by imolaM3

[Apex Effects 3]

i vote they should be grey or bronze

[AN E30 Fan 1]

The wheels need to be bigger to pull of that look and the red pin stripe is too thick IMO.

Sorry, I think it just looks a little tacky

Edited June 18, 2011 by AJ_D

[gpetersen 0]

oh my bad, sorry guys i forgot to consult u wen considering painting the wheels on my car...ill keep u in mind for future projects.

im thinking of posting some more projects of custom audio install, changing the head unit to an alpine getting rid of the shitty speakers, also a sub, maybe 2. Stealth installing the amps aswell. Then also stealth installing a valentine one with a heads up display. After that i was thinking of showing how to do a full cut, polish and detail the way the professionals do it, for the cheapest layout still using professional grade products.

Let me know wat u think and maybe u guys can come up with a few weekend projects the other readers on here can look at and do to their cars too. Quality and informative info is wat this forum is supposed to be bout at the end of it all

or start a consultancy thread along with any other like minded peeps on here

[5amchris 45]

I like the ideas! Cant wait for you to start posting some up

[gpetersen 0]

Ok here we go.

First, of course remove the wheels from the car. Then degrease them thoroughly with a degreasing agent, they usually have them in stacks of about a million in super cheap. Once soaked nicely, water blast them if u have ur own, great, if not then just go to wash world or something. But using a waterblaster is a hell of a lot faster and easier than using the old elbow grease

The reason for degreasing the wheels, is simply because most of us use that wonderful silicone spray to keep the tires nice and shiny, except silicone is the absolute devil when it comes to spray painting. The tiniest amount can ruin hours and hours of meticulous prep. So do ur self the favour and degrease ur wheels before u start

[gpetersen 0]

After that u want to go and have ur wheels de- beaded. All this is, is having the seal broken where the tire meets the rim, u will need to take the wheels to a wheel/tire shop to have that done. I went to a local Frank Allen and they did it for free.

The reason u do this so that u can sand the lip all the way round to past where the tire meets the rim. This means if u can sand it properly ur paint will stick as long as it needs to until curbed And it just looks a lot better.

[gpetersen 0]

Now, the products i used in this project is as follows;

- PPG base coat colour (imola rot)

- Autothane clear coat

- Autothane commercial vehicle black

- Autothane flatting base

- 2 Way thinner

- Wax and grease remover

- 48mm masking tape

- 18mm masking tape

- 6mm fine line tape

- 6 inch masking paper

- Red scotch brite pad

- PPG Scan sealer, adhesion promoter

Edited June 20, 2011 by imolaM3

[gpetersen 0]

the first step of the prep is to yet again give it a good wipe down with the solvent wax and grease remover. It doesn't necessarily mean it will only take one wipe, keep going until the tire looks really dull and like a chalk board. Its important to do this because if u dont then the masking tape will not stick to the tires when u mask them up.

After thats done, use the red scotchy to scuff up the lip. You want to 'scotchy' past the point of where u r goin to mask up. Do this because then u know that the paint u r about to spray is sitting a on fully and well prepped surface.

[gpetersen 0]

After this, make wat is called a soft edge. U do this by folding about 1/3 of the 18mm tape back onto itself, rolling it along ur leg as u pull it off the roll. Put the soft edge on the edge that is going to painted body colour, in this case imola rot.

Once that is done go over it again with the 48mm masking tape so u have something to stick the plastic to when u covet the centre of the wheel.

Mask up the tire with 48mm tape too, just till the masking goes on to the tread. Its not necessary to mask up the entire tire.

Edited June 20, 2011 by imolaM3

[gpetersen 0]

Once all prepped and masked up its time to degrease one more time, then hit it wit the colour

Once the colour has flashed off, u can go ahead and clearcoat it. Just 1 - 2 coats is fine.

These pics of the red sprayed, dried and unmasked ready to start prepping for the black.

[gpetersen 0]

Now that the red is done and dusted its time to prepare urself for some frustrating sanding and really sore fingers. Depending on how intricate ur wheels are the prep time will vary. These bastard wheels took me about 30-40 mins per wheel to prep

Start off by removing the centre caps, usually the back of a screwdriver works fine. Remove any other badges or stickers on the wheel (and throw them away, it cant be reused). I had ///M badges that had been masked up really sh*t in a previous paint job and the recess where they sit was all mangey and just horrible, so i cleaned all the old paint out with a wire wheel, then feathered the edges out.

When i prep wheels, i always start at the valve so that i know where i am in terms of progress on each wheel. I also to the hardest parts first so i dont lose interest and skimp on the prep work! So in this case i did the edges of the spokes first and the face last.

Using the red scotchy go thru and scuff up as best u can, when all the edges r done scotchy the face. There will be parts u just cannot get into, but dont worry there is an adhesion promoter u will be using

[gpetersen 0]

After u have prepped all the wheels and now ready to paint the centre, give the wheels a good blow down and a degrease, blow it down again to get any degreaser out of areas u cudnt get in with a rag.

Use 3M 6mm fine line tape to mask out on the body colour where u want the black to meet. Using the 6mm fine line tape allows u to make the circle around the outside of the wheel nice and clean without any kinks in the tape causing bleed thru.

After that tape up the rest of the body colour using 18mm tape as show in the following pics.

A tip for masking up the valves;

Pull a small piece of tape, roughly 50mm and tear it off the roll. Wrap the tape snuggly around the tip of ur pinky finger to make a tube, then slide that over the valve. Doin it this way allows u to get the tape down as far as possible to where the valve meets the painted surface.

[gpetersen 0]

This is wat the wheels shud look like when fully masked up and ready to go with the black paint.

[gpetersen 0]

Once all the wheels r ready to be painted, the first product i used was an adhesion promoter by PPG called scan sealer. I used this because as i mentioned earlier i couldnt get in to some places with my scotchy or sand paper, so one coat of this over all the wheels will sort out the new paint sticking to and unsanded surface, as long as it is clean and free of dirt, sudt and grease.

[gpetersen 0]

Once the scan sealer has flashed off, around 10-15 mins depending on temperature, u can go ahead and put 1 coat of the black paint on. Put about 2-3 coats on waiting about 10-15 mins between coats. In my last coat i added a product called flatting base, it flattens the gloss level of the paint, i was goin for a matt black but that didnt happen hahaha i didnt put enough flatting base in the colour

Also when painting wheels, u wana paint the edges first to get them covered and do the face of the wheel last cos thats wat needs to look the best and flattest

[gpetersen 0]

Leave the wheels for a day to dry off nicely and then unmask the wheels, when pulling the fine line tape off, pull it at 90 degress or perpendicular to the wheel to get it off as clean as possible.

The finished product

Now some of u mite be asking y i sprayed my standard wheels. I was goin to trade them in when i get my new wheels, but i went to a gymkhana day at hampton a few weeks back and realised that i still want to do track days with my car and that 20 inch wheels were not goin to cut it on the track.

All of the work i have/goin to do to this car is a reflection of my character and personality. I am not doing the work to impress any body. Its purely because i want to and i can, it is my car after all. People all have different senses of taste, and i have mine. I dont climb down purists' throat because they leave a car plain and boring how it came from the factory, and dont expect a purist to climb down my throat becos im changing the car from how BMW made it. Its my f**king car!

Cheers

[westy 614]

Pretty godamn thorough, I give you that.

A pretty good tutorial.

[DarinD 8]

Enjoyed reading that! Very helpful I reckon for someone like me who is just starting out. And I think it looks great on your car mate.

[Braeden320 0]

Good sh*t, Nice write up.

[M3_Power 636]

Personally love the new look of the wheels (although would have been better if you could have tracked down a beat up set rather than a set in such nice condition - but like you said, it's your car, you can damn well do whatever you like to it [insert thumbs up pic].)

[cliffdunedin 8]

Awesome write up my man!!

Really helpful for those thinking of painting but with little experience.

[DrphTa 5]

Nice painting skills

[bellicose 9]

Flatting agent doesn't work in solids like the Autothane CV colours.

I appreciate the time you took to do the job and the outcome and the write up is good and informative but...............................i feel you are going to have problems with the paint in between the spokes.

It looks like you couldn't get right in there and sand it, no amount of adhesion promoter will help in that situation.

Personnaly i would of got the rims bead blasted (you were half way there getting tyres off) then some wet on wet no sand primer then blast ya paint on.

Would've saved ya some stress and time.

My 2c.

Edited June 22, 2011 by bellicose

[Nobimmer 694]

Wheels look coolish, IMO the stripe needs to be smaller.