Hey when I bought my runner 2 years ago It had these steel wheels on it and I had changed to some aluminum wheels but the offset was wrong or something and would wear my tires weird, so I went back to these wheels and they were grey then i painted them black and now i want a silver. I was just wondering what color they were before all the paint? I was wondering what would happen if I put aircraft stripper on them? We have used air craft stripper on car to strip all the way to the metal I was just wondering if this would harm the rims? and what color you guys think they would be after they are stripped?

TIA
Julian

 

metal grey.

 

Ok, what do you suggest I put on the metal to keep in protected from rust? Or, should I paint them? I just dont like the look of the flat black anymore. and My mom wants them silver or gray again. here is the color they were when I got the runner I think that is what she wants again!

 

Is this the color they would be if I stripped them down?

 

Got in trouble with your mom did ya?

 

Nah, Its been like that a year she just doesnt like the look anymore. (It is her car though) Im gonna my old rims back from my friends garage and post them for sale and buy new rims. But this will be my car within the next month or so and I'm putting the silver Soft 8's on it

 

If you strip it your going all the way down to bare metal, and you need to get a primer on it as soon as you do that, easiest way is to get a cup brush for a power drill and go to town, it will strip it down to metal in about 5-10 minutes each wheel, hit it with some thinner after that, then mineral spirits, let it dry, and then put a coat of primer on it - I did 3 coats of primer, then wait a while and do a coat or 3 of your chosen color.

I did those exact same rims to bare metal, then prepped and painted in about 3 hours one night, it's easy just takes a little time.

 

Ok. so either way I am going to bare metal? The aircraft stripper will remover paint with a few minutes..and all I would need is a scraper to scrape away the paint.

 

You could always just paint them with the metallic chrome spray paint. My wheels were painted with that when I bought it and it looked fine:

I ended up painting mine black because I think it looks better with my new tires. When I went black, I just cleaned and sanded the chrome paint down a bit and painted over the top and its held up fine.

 

Yeah. thats how mine were when I got it. I couldnt find any pic of it with the rims in plain sight. but I just dont want the paint to get to thick. Maybe I will just do that and if I ever paint them again Ill just strip them to metal put a primer paint them than paint them... Well thanks guys!

 

Ok, so I started tonight. I decided just to take them to bare metal then primer and paint them in gray. Here is the driver side ones. I like the look so far!

 

I painted mine black too. Just started getting tired of them recently. If I keep them what I'll do is, strip them down to bare metal and paint on a light gray satin finish, to match factory color as close as I can.

 

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Looks like you have it under control though. If there's anything I have to repeat again and again to folks it's to use clear coat. I'm not sure what the aversion is to using cc, but people argue with me all the time about it. Need to see how important it is? Go to my recent blog entry here.

 

Hey w9h2i4treutnrnuecrk Just some word of advise go buy some goof off graffiti remover. I had half a can of it from trying to remove paint off the inside of a semi trailer and I sprayed it on the rims and walked away, when I came back i got a rag and wiped it off and all of the paint even the former paint came off! I have some pics of what they looked like before I wiped it off! But it was amazing, I didnt have to use sand paper or anything!

 

Here are the pics.

 

Thanks 2cul, that's great! I'll have to give that a try.

 

No problem. Anything to help a fellow YT member.

 

Then can I give you the list of all the thousands of dollars' worth of mods I want for my 4 Runner? haha

 

Haha, I wish i had the money to just give out (I wish i just had money, Its sooo hard to find a job these days (Im only 16)) I dont even have the money for a lift and my tires and rims!
But eventually I wanna do an SAS.

 

I'm only 20, last semester of a 2-year college degree in Electronics...meaning, I HOPE I can start getting a cashflow by summer...fat chance in the economy, especially if I stay where I am. I'm just deciding for now that I'd rather keep this truck and "invest" in it rather than get something newer. Cheaper...but still out of reach right now