Prepping wheels for clearcoat?

[nastety92]

I am just about to finish polishing two of my stock wheels, and they will be ready for clearcoat any day now. I was wondering what I need to do to prep the wheels so that the clear coat with cure properly to the wheels? The wheels will be going to a body shop to get cleared. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Lata,

 

[warmpancakes]

The body shop should take care of that because they are not really going to know what you did or what productus you used Ken

 

[jhacking]

You need to make sure all of the polishing compound is completly of ,and check your finish on the wheels . Because once the clear goes on,you will see every little imperfection if you did not take the time in your pep work. Not saying you didnt do a good job,just talking from experince.I painted at a body shop for 8 years, and that is the biggest mistake every body makes,by getting in to big of a hurry.

 

[nastety92]

Thanks for the help, yeah one of the things that I have right now is time. I have another 2-3 months before I'm going to be driving my truck again, so I've been taking my time with these wheels. I just wanted to know, is there any type of chemical that I can use or anything spcific that I can put on the wheels so that the clear will cure correctly. Right now, I have two done, and they are completly stripped and smooth. Thanks again,
Lata,

 

[jhacking]

I would use some paint thiner, its not going to harm the finish ,and it will give them a good cleaning. As for the clear coat to cure the body shop will take care of that.Just make sure they are clean ,and ready to go they will be happy.It saves alot of time.

 

[kwick6]

On 2002-01-24 16:58, NASTETy92 wrote:
I am just about to finish polishing two of my stock wheels, and they will be ready for clearcoat any day now. I was wondering what I need to do to prep the wheels so that the clear coat with cure properly to the wheels? The wheels will be going to a body shop to get cleared. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Lata,

Got any pics of how they turned out?
I am thinking of sending mine out to get reconditioned. I really like how GM Turbo's looked,<---- sorry don't mean to remind you, but they did look good. Dave, did they do any painting on yours after they stripped them? I would assume so, to get the inserts to look good. Do you know the color?

I could save some cash and do it myself. I like the polished look, but I think the reconditioned stock looks real nice too.

Wonder if anyone has a procedure on their site to recondition? I would rather save the 500 and do them myself, but I want them to look nice when done also.

First step would be to strip the clearcoat, and I have heard the best way to do that is to lay them face down in stripper, overnight then next day wipe the clearcoat off.
Then what, paint em?

Thanks,
Scott


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kwick6 on 2002-01-25 16:48 ]</font>

 

[nastety92]

What I did was first strip my wheels with paint/ clear coat stripper, this can be bought at any paint store, or auto parts store. Second, I started using the kit that I got from the Eastwood company. This was a full sanding and polishing kit, I think it cost me $90 shipping to my house. After the wheel were all done, about 12-15 hours of work later, I painted the GMC letters black, and I painted the inserts a light gray metalic. After this, the wheels will be going to the body shop to get cleared. They are going to charge me $100 for all four to get cleard. So thats, $90, $100, and maybe $40 in misc. other parts and products. So about $230-250 to do all four rims, not bad in my opinion. I cost about $150 each wheel to get put back to stock, or to get polished. I will have pics as soon as my first two are completely done. Talk to you all soon,
Lata,