I got bored of the boring boring silver wheels, and it was time for a change. But what color to paint them, black, white, gold, pink? Just kidding on the last one, so i liked the stock Subaru STI gold wheels and that's what i did, GK1 color code that is. It was so hard to clean all the brake dust off the inside of the wheels, and i wanted 'em to look good inside and out, so i took 'em to a powder coating place and had 'em stripped and bead blasted (much better then sand blasting). If you don't mind spending extra few bucks, this is the way to go, they charged me $240 to strip 4 wheels. Here is what they look like stripped...



If you get them blasted, make sure you was 'em with some warm soapy water to get all the dust off. I didn't want to wait to wait for 'em to air dry so i used my compressor air, and let them sit in a nice warm room for 30-45 minutes to make sure they are dry. I used self-etching primer to prime the wheel, but used the tack cloth to wipe it down just to make sure there is nothing on the wheel that would show later... here it is primed...







And here is couple with base coat applied, I made sure I used the tack cloth before every coat. (primer, base and clear)





Than I did the clear and let 'em sit on my box for few days before mounting the tires, check it out...





Here is one few days later with a tire mounted



My front tires were still good and i kept 'em, ordered my rear once couple days ago and should be here tomorrow, if so, I will have them mounted right away and post few pictures of the wheels on the car, since so far I only have couple dark once of the car sitting in my garage, but check them out anyways...





And i have to ask you guys, what color should i paint my center caps? I painted one gold, and it doesn't look right on the gold wheel, tell me what you think, thank you.

 

Looks like good work! Why not go without the center caps?

 

imo, they would look better if you painted the sides of the spokes then kept the face polished...

also, you paid $240 just for bead blasting? what's wrong w/ just stripping all the oem coatings off w/ aircraft stripper?

 

I tried 3 strippers (paint strippers) and no of em worked, it would only lift up clear coat. $240 is not bad to do 4 wheels, it took em almost all day to bead blast the paint off, it wouldn't come off for s**t

 

Wow that looks awesome!!!!

 

did you use paint stripper from home depot or aircraft stripper? i've yet to have problems w/ aircraft stripper. the stuff even removes powder coating.

 

IMO, the $240 was not needed to strip the paint/clear coat. Airplane stripper is damn nasty. That stuff will burn through your gloves.

Looks good non the less.

 

I took mine in, they strip them and for


$300.00 Professionally powder coatded metalic gray

 

Your wheels look great. A local powder coating place wanted 600 bucks to powder coat my wheels, if i wasn't planning to get after market wheels later, i would of done it, no sense of spending 600 bucks and keeping them for a year

 

where can i get some of that aircraft stripper???