Tips for Repainting Black Inserts on '87 Grand National Wheels?...

[Yankee John]

When my GN gets back from the body & paint shop in a few weeks, I need to repaint the black accents on the factory wheels. Are there any tips or tricks that you can pass on to me that will make it easier?

When I had my '69 GTO, I was able to buy a wheel masking kit for the factory Rallye wheels. I haven't seen any such kit for 86-87 GN's- Is there a template kit available for these wheels?

Thanks in advance for your advice!
John

 

[SS_Sean]

I've considered powdercoating the wheels, and after having mine rechromed. Just a thought....

 

[INEEDAGN]

Thanks to the little lip around those edges, it's not terribly difficult to mask it all off and then cut the openings back out with a razor blade. Though it does dull a lot of blades. I just did a pair of 8" wide ones for my car. Clean the wheel up decent and bring it in the house and do it while watching tv. Barrett-Jackson is good background tv for this. I used coarse scotchbrite after masking to scuff it real good, then cleaned it well with some alcohol and allowed to dry before I painted it with ordinary semi gloss rattle can. Looks fantastic, but my car is a garage queen so I wasn't worried about the cheap paint holding up. I should've looked into a better method of paint adhesion to chrome but I doubt it will flake off any faster than the factory stuff does. It looks like it will be eternity before I can afford tires for those wheels anyway.

hope this helps

 

[TwinyTwin]

Thanks to the little lip around those edges, it's not terribly difficult to mask it all off and then cut the openings back out with a razor blade. Though it does dull a lot of blades. I used coarse scotchbrite after masking to scuff it real good, then cleaned it well with some alcohol and allowed to dry before I painted it with ordinary semi gloss rattle can.

I did the same thing with mine and it came out great. After pulling off all the masking tape I use a chrome polish to bring out the shine in the rest of the wheel. Here is a picture once finished and tire mounted, sorry for the crappy camera phone picture.