That looks great, t-s-m. But your attention to detail is rare.
I used regular Krylon primer and Krylon āchromeā paint from WalMart. After trying various silvers, none of which gave me what I wanted, I decided to give this a shot and was surprised at how nice it came out. The wheels are alloy, so I used a sheet of aluminum flashing to test various paints on. I got luckyā¦ but as the old saying goes, luck comes usually after work and trial & error.
Thanks for the compliments. 
By the way, if you look closely youāll see some runs in one of the photos, but thatās my fault. No patience. The photos simply point out that it isnāt necessary to get special paint or do fancy thingsā¦ or even remove the wheelsā¦ to make a big difference. These wheels have 11-1/2 years and 240,000 miles on them, including winters.
Nice job. Its a pain in the neck though to tape up the lug nuts and valve stem. Then the tire. Tape doesnāt like to stick to the rubber tires and cut paper around the rim, when you press it in place, there is a gap. All told wheels are a pain but you did a good job. Sore knees and back Iāll bet.
Thanks for the compliment. Once you get the hang of it, it isnāt that bad. Tot my surprise, the tape stuck to the tires beautifully. I used a good quality blue painterās tape, 'cause thatās what I had on hand for painting. I used rubber table leg ends over the lug nuts, and just a āflagā of tape on the valve stems.
Confession: I laid down on corrugated cardboard to do the masking. And I knelt on one knee to do the spraying. I canāt work bent over. However, the first time I painted them, years ago (I just redid them with a quick overspray earlier this year) I removed the wheels, and Iāve found that masking the tires, capping the lug nuts, and pushing some rags between the spokes is far, far, far easier on my back than removing the wheels. And far less time-consuming too!
A few added tips:
I held a piece of poster board in a cone around the tire with my left hand while I sprayed with my right to prevent overspray from getting on the body, and I waxed the car well beforehand to prevent any overspray from sticking. It worked!
Over the years I have detailed a few cars to sell and when the wheels were looking bad I pulled them off, removed the tires and valve stems and installed them one by one on a front hub while the car was raised to a convenient level on a lift. There I could easily sand, prime and paint them. The results were quite good but I doubt that even in a shop I could get spoked alloy wheels to look that good t-s-m. Iām amazed you were able to get paint to flow on and stick to those wheels.
And while my results would possibly have compared to @circuitsmithās I canāt imagine such results with a brush working on a mounted wheel.
Iāll need a couple of aspirin before bed just thinking about you two painting those wheels on the ground.
I just did two thin coats. The brush strokes smoothed right out. POR-15 is pretty low viscosity.
I didnāt do any sanding (did it before the rims started to rust), just thorough cleaning.
It held up very well for the two years I used those wheels.
LOL, as complimented as I am by yāallās comments, youāre giving me way more credit than Iāve earned. It really wasnāt hard at all. I think the secret was the coat of primer. And some experimentation on my practice piece of aluminum flashing 
If it were me Iād take the wheel off the car.
This guy gives a pretty good tutorial
To each his own.
Perhaps I should make a tutorial too. 
Or perhaps there are variables involved. In my case, I wasnāt changing the color, and my rims werenāt rusted only contaminated with brake dust that wouldnāt come off. The OP plans to change his wheel color. In that case, removing the wheels would be advisable.
I always like seeing how other people do things to pick up tips. I have to say the index cards around the wheel is a trick I never thought of but will likely use myself sometime. Years ago before heated garages, my BIL showed me the trick of heating your car paint in warm water and I have used that a few times but now I have heat. I also liked the idea of using a glove tip on the tire valve. In college when I worked in the HVAC factory, they actually used condoms to protect the ends of radiator copper tubes while awaiting assembly. I never worked that area though and was too young for that anyway.
For the negative, I didnāt like his spraying technique. Way to fast and looked like an arc instead of equal distance, but the video was good.
Here are the potential problems:
- Paint ending up on your brake parts, so affecting the braking performance
- Plastic or rubber parts of the brake system be affected with the paint or its solvent
- Paint or its solvent affect the tire, particularly its lips, thus affecting the ability of the tire to seal itself to the rim
Mshams, I can see where people whoāve never done this have concerns. However, having done this, I can tell you that none of these problems exist. Read my posts above.
One more point: I did mine years ago because I could not clean the dust from the organic OEM pads off of the rims. I tried everything. But a coat of primer and a coat of paint really did the trick beautifully.
take em off, while they are off you can paint your calipers too.
Discretion, as they say, being the better part of valor, I bought four rims new from discounttiredirect.com and with the $100 gift card offer, paid $260 for 4 new rims with free shipping. My guy put them on for $80.
That seems like a good outcome. And a good price for all that. Good for you.
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