Last year I picked up a set of experienced, but not exhausted, AEV Salta wheels in whatever plain silver they were offered in way back when. They looked OK the finish was pretty beat, but there was no rash or dents in them, other than some scars from tire machines inside the barrel.
I wanted to dress up my truck a little bit, make it more of an AEV prospector knockoff vs the clean but oversized work truck it looks like now when i have my 37's on. I have plans to swap out the chrome bumpers for black, and either do a black grill trim or paint matched, I'll cross that bridge later. I figured the first thing I could do easily, and for not much money would be to paint the wheels.
I went back and forth between, black, gunmetal, or bronze. I ultimately landed on Duplicolor Bronze. I also decided while I was at it and had the rims and tires separated I would finally paint the lettering red on my tires.
I spent the good portion of a Saturday dismounting the tires and scuffing up the wheels with a red scotchbrite to prepare them for paint. A good friend of mine that's far more knowledgeable about painting and industrial coatings than I am offered to help me out so while I was working on the wheels he started on the trim rings and center caps and they came out pretty nice, but he did comment that the paint cans were dry spraying a bit, and showed me some black grit on a couple of the trim rings. He said he would do them again after blasting them if need be:
The following day I was hoping to start painting but my friend couldn't make it so I spent a good couple hours with the paint marker doing the lettering on my tires, it came out pretty good, don't know how long it'll last, but it looks good now. Also after the fact I realized it probably would've been easier and may have looked better if I just did the outline of the letters, but it was too late and I was committed to doing all the letters completely.
The following weekend I got fed up waiting for my buddy and decided to start painting on my own, I gave all the wheels a dawn dish soap bath, then dried them off, wiped them down with a tack cloth and finally hung them up for painting. I made sure the conditions in my garage were perfect, 73° and 55% humidity, and I got to work.
Unfortunately this is where things went way off the rails and went from being an inexpensive weekend project to a very expensive pain in my @$$. My friends issue with dry spray was not isolated. Apparently these Duplicolor cans are pretty notorious for having sprayer issues, with inconsistent output between cans, and mainly too fine of a spray. That's what I experienced, the directions say to spray from 6-8" away in smooth side to side passes. Well, that's what I was doing and it took me an entire can to get 1 light coat on the first wheel. For the next couple coats I tried going slower, and moving the can closer to the work, it all helped, and the face of the wheel came out looking OK, but the paint spray was so fine, majority of the paint was drying in the air, then settling on the flat horizontal surfaces of the wheel in this fuzzy black grit.
I didn't even bother with the clear coat after that, I was so disgusted after 5 coats, I rage quit and decided I would punt and pay a professional to paint them. Unfortunately, NOBODY wants to paint wheels anymore, everyone wants to powder coat, and AEV specifically states on their HD wheels, PAINT AND PRIMER ONLY, NO POWDER COATING. They claim the powder coat baking process could mess with the temper of the wheel potentially lowering their rating. I don't know how true that is, and it's most likely AEV covering themselves, but I didn't want to risk it.
I finally decided I would try painting them myself again, but this time I would go to an Automotive paint supply, and have them color match the duplicolor bronze but in a proper fancy professional grade automotive paint. They were not able to get an exact match for me, so I ended up going through a bunch of paint chips, and by coincidence I landed on a Chrysler color, "Bronze Star". $450 later i walked out with several custom mixed spray cans of Bronze Star, and fancy epoxy primer. Needless to say, this time the painting is going much better. 2 Wheels are done, and I'm hoping to have the other 2 finished this weekend. I also got 1 tire mounted today, and I'm very happy with how it came out.
I'm going in for hand surgery Friday to get some tendinitis sorted out so I can get back into bowling again, so I probably won't have the rest of the tires mounted and balanced for a few weeks, but once it's all done I'll post pictures of the wheels and tires on the truck.
I wanted to dress up my truck a little bit, make it more of an AEV prospector knockoff vs the clean but oversized work truck it looks like now when i have my 37's on. I have plans to swap out the chrome bumpers for black, and either do a black grill trim or paint matched, I'll cross that bridge later. I figured the first thing I could do easily, and for not much money would be to paint the wheels.
I went back and forth between, black, gunmetal, or bronze. I ultimately landed on Duplicolor Bronze. I also decided while I was at it and had the rims and tires separated I would finally paint the lettering red on my tires.
I spent the good portion of a Saturday dismounting the tires and scuffing up the wheels with a red scotchbrite to prepare them for paint. A good friend of mine that's far more knowledgeable about painting and industrial coatings than I am offered to help me out so while I was working on the wheels he started on the trim rings and center caps and they came out pretty nice, but he did comment that the paint cans were dry spraying a bit, and showed me some black grit on a couple of the trim rings. He said he would do them again after blasting them if need be:
The following day I was hoping to start painting but my friend couldn't make it so I spent a good couple hours with the paint marker doing the lettering on my tires, it came out pretty good, don't know how long it'll last, but it looks good now. Also after the fact I realized it probably would've been easier and may have looked better if I just did the outline of the letters, but it was too late and I was committed to doing all the letters completely.
The following weekend I got fed up waiting for my buddy and decided to start painting on my own, I gave all the wheels a dawn dish soap bath, then dried them off, wiped them down with a tack cloth and finally hung them up for painting. I made sure the conditions in my garage were perfect, 73° and 55% humidity, and I got to work.
Unfortunately this is where things went way off the rails and went from being an inexpensive weekend project to a very expensive pain in my @$$. My friends issue with dry spray was not isolated. Apparently these Duplicolor cans are pretty notorious for having sprayer issues, with inconsistent output between cans, and mainly too fine of a spray. That's what I experienced, the directions say to spray from 6-8" away in smooth side to side passes. Well, that's what I was doing and it took me an entire can to get 1 light coat on the first wheel. For the next couple coats I tried going slower, and moving the can closer to the work, it all helped, and the face of the wheel came out looking OK, but the paint spray was so fine, majority of the paint was drying in the air, then settling on the flat horizontal surfaces of the wheel in this fuzzy black grit.
I didn't even bother with the clear coat after that, I was so disgusted after 5 coats, I rage quit and decided I would punt and pay a professional to paint them. Unfortunately, NOBODY wants to paint wheels anymore, everyone wants to powder coat, and AEV specifically states on their HD wheels, PAINT AND PRIMER ONLY, NO POWDER COATING. They claim the powder coat baking process could mess with the temper of the wheel potentially lowering their rating. I don't know how true that is, and it's most likely AEV covering themselves, but I didn't want to risk it.
I finally decided I would try painting them myself again, but this time I would go to an Automotive paint supply, and have them color match the duplicolor bronze but in a proper fancy professional grade automotive paint. They were not able to get an exact match for me, so I ended up going through a bunch of paint chips, and by coincidence I landed on a Chrysler color, "Bronze Star". $450 later i walked out with several custom mixed spray cans of Bronze Star, and fancy epoxy primer. Needless to say, this time the painting is going much better. 2 Wheels are done, and I'm hoping to have the other 2 finished this weekend. I also got 1 tire mounted today, and I'm very happy with how it came out.
I'm going in for hand surgery Friday to get some tendinitis sorted out so I can get back into bowling again, so I probably won't have the rest of the tires mounted and balanced for a few weeks, but once it's all done I'll post pictures of the wheels and tires on the truck.
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