I am about to put on new tires, so I was thinking about painting my charcoal stock rims Repsol orange to match the accents on my bike. I was looking at the rims and they seem to be pretty rough, as in textured. They don't look like they would be a standard sand and prime job. They look like you would need to sand-blast them to get in all the crevices. My rims are in mint condition as they have the original tires still on them. Just want a new color. Any body paint theirs and have knowledge of what I am up against....don't mind hard work but if they are the equivalent of taking off wallpaper in an old house then I will pass.

Joel

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Powder coat...

Powder coat...

wow, those look fucking awesome!

How hard was preping the rims for primer?

thanks
Joel

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You don't, you bring to powder coater.

You can either bring them the bear rims, removing bearing's, valves, etc. or
they will do it (costs more).

They take it from there, media blast the rims and powder coat them.

I brought them just the rims as pictured above and cost wasn't that much
to powder coat. Like 300-350 for both if I remember correctly.

I've heard that rattle canning your rims will not hold up well. Someone suggested applying a lot of clear coat and it will be fine.

All of the paint I did on the engine has held up well. I guess I would give rattle canning rims a try if you want to go cheap and can find the color you want off the shelf.

I would wash them, scuff sand lightly, wash again and spray. You're better off not trying to remove the OEM paint as long as it is adhered to the metal. Paint sticks better to paint that does to metal so if it's stuck to the metal, leave it alone.

DO NOT rattle can until after the new tires are on. Fresh paint will be vulnerable to scuffs.

To level out the orange peel, you can go over it lightly with your hands and fingers and some fine polishing compound. A cloth will polish the fresh paint right off.

Check out my sprocket painting tutorial. BTW, that sprocket still looks like I painted it yesterday.

You might have to do frequent touch ups unless you get them professionally powder coated.

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Check out my sprocket painting tutorial. BTW, that sprocket still looks like I painted it yesterday.

thanks for the advise. I will put the rims on the back burner for now. I paint my new black 44t orange and see how it holds up.....the teeth where the chain rides can't possibly still be holding the paint.

Since I have a 120 link chain. I can change my 16t to 17t and it takes a 120 link chain so I have one less chain to cut. I am going to just borrow my uncles grinder to take down the link on the stock chain, so I can put less stress on the anvil of my Pro-motion tool. I was gonna milk another year out of the stock chain but This new chain can go 30,000 miles if cared for anyway so I might as well get the gearing I want now. I don't like the way the 16t fucks with my shift indicator now.....and it is noticeably noisier than the 17t.

How many miles are you getting out of your Aluminum rear sprockets?

Joel

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The store bought rattle can does not have a catalyst in the paint that allows it to set up hard and durable like good auto paint does. I have been told some auto paint stores can mix up two part paint w/ hardener in it and put it into rattle can for you. But I have never actually done it.

Power coat is the way to go

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Powder coating is the way to go if you want a durable, long lasting finish. If you want to see how it
may look , try Plasti Dip. Deflate the tires, tape off and spray it on. If you don't like it , just peel it back off. My friend Plastidipped his SV650 rims black and it still looks good. It will peel if you're not careful during tire changes.

Mad

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I paint my new black 44t orange and see how it holds up.....the teeth where the chain rides can't possibly still be holding the paint.

No--LOL the paint wore off where the teeth touch but no worse than the finish on any other sprocket. It actually took a while before the paint wore off the teeth and I think that alone caused me to need to tighten the chain a touch.

How many miles are you getting out of your Aluminum rear sprockets?

20,000 for me. They're not all hard miles. I do a lot of normal riding between twisties.

The store bought rattle can does not have a catalyst in the paint that allows it to set up hard and durable like good auto paint does. I have been told some auto paint stores can mix up two part paint w/ hardener in it and put it into rattle can for you. But I have never actually done it.

There is a high quality spray paint by Eastwood that releases a catalyst the first time you use it but it will all harden inside the can in a short time if you do not use it all. It's expensive. Might be worth a try for rims if you can find the right color. I would still paint after the tire is installed. There's no need to paint the inside if the OEM paint is in good shape there.

The Valspar spray paint I used on my sprocket was very bright, maybe too bright for your scheme. It hardened exceptionally slowly but it held up perfectly well. To speed up the curing of a slow paint, I have applied a coat of fast drying primer and then the slow color over the top. It worked well. Try Flame-Proof VHT (or Rustoleum flat equipment enamel--it's hard to tell the dif putting the two side by side) and apply Valspar over it. The Automotive clear coat I used also cured pretty fast. By "fast" I mean "not sticky" if you touch it for 10 seconds. It takes a year for ordinary enamel to reach max hardness.

Power coat is the way to go

That's the way to go if you want it to look good and stay looking good.

* Last updated by: Rook on 8/22/2018 @ 10:29 AM *

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Do it once and do them right. Powder Coating is the way to go and cost is right around $300.00 to have both wheels done. I'm having mines done this Winter because I hate the original UPS Brown that matches nothing on my bike.

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I went ahead and painted the stock UPS rims black. It went well but took an extra couple of days because my first attempt was to remove all paint from the front rim to reveal the aluminum. I was going to buff it to a nice shine and then clear coat the whole thing to keep it form oxidizing. It took too many hours and too many trips to harbor freight to buy all the sanding/stripping attachments for my drill. I ended up cutting my losses and resanded the entire rim with 220 grit and then used a Primer/etcher on it....then sanded the primer and then the next morning began the base coats. I did about 4 coats of base coat and then 6-8 coats of clear. The rear wheel went much quicker because I just saneded it with 220 grit and did not need to prime it. My paint had primer in it anyway. They ended up looking very nice. I turned them in the sun all weekend long to aid in drying them, while I did the calipers, rotors, and sprocket. They were very dry to the touch and not sticky at all by the time I mounted them on the bike. I am going to wash them with water only for the first couple of months and then detail them up nice and shoot some pics.

I did this project for a few reasons.....
1. What is to loose when you are going to powder coat them anyway if it doesn't hold up?
2. I mount and balance my own tires so to be able to fix any issues with rim scrape installing tires is a big plus.
3. I can change the colors yearly if I like if this holds up which is nice to someone that likes to change up things on their bike.
4. Extreme boredom. - I am not a tv watcher and you can only go to the gym so much so there was a lot of time on my hands and what better way to have fun then to work on the bike.

I will add some pics in a couple of thousand miles to show how well they hold up. I ride about 1000 miles per month so it will be at the end of this season.

thanks
Joel

* Last updated by: ExWifesChewToy on 9/20/2018 @ 1:29 PM *

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