Stripping and painting center caps - with pics

[Ghostrider]

I went total OCD on this simple job. Obtained five center caps from junkyard. First stripped with acetone and steel brush. they are plastic at that point


Hit them with Rustoleum 2X Primer and then duplicolor silver wheel paint. Went OCD and did this three times. The first time I had too much silver, the second time the silver peeled back after drying. More acetone and start over. The third time I sanded with 0000 steel wool before primer and buffed silver paint after it dried and applied two more coats. This silver seems to have a little "sparkle" in it and I am not OCD enough to hand paint the logo.

The real issue is that I am probably going to take the worst looking of the five and paint it black to see if I like that better - in which case I may do this all again

 

[Twisted Sid]

I did this same thing last year and to fill the center ring and logo, I used a small syringe with a blunt tip I got off Amazon, and it worked very well. Have had no peeling or cracking. Think I used rustolium paint

 

[HiLife]

Looks good. Good tip on using a syringe and a blunt tip to do the fill in color.
Would love to rehab mines. Thieves already did a fast swap on mines. Oh well, at least they mounted their old ones on instead of leaving the wheel with no center caps.
Afraid they'll do it again when I done painting the beat up ones.

 

[Ghostrider]

I did this same thing last year and to fill the center ring and logo, I used a small syringe with a blunt tip I got off Amazon, and it worked very well. Have had no peeling or cracking. Think I used rustolium paint

Could we get a little more info on this. What syringe and what type paint?

 

[JZiggy]

When I did mine I used basic Rustoleum silver and then clear. It's not a perfect match but 98% and looks good. This has held up for almost 2 years without issue. I did the same thing on a different car and it's also held up well.

 

[Outrider]

I did something similar with mine about 8 years ago. I don't recall the type or brand of rattle can paint I used, but it fairly closely matched my factory aluminum wheels. It held up pretty well for several years, but it needs to be redone now, and this thread is a good reminder.

It probably doesn't help that I use Wesley's Bleche White on my tires and wheels. It does a great job of cleaning tires and of cleaning old-fashioned brake dust (but I have yet to find anything that will clean ceramic brake dust well), but it is very strong and probably degraded the paint on my center hubs.

Also, the rattle can bed liner that I painted my roof rack rails with about 8 years ago didn't hold up worth a crap, and I don't even use Bleche White on them.

As a somewhat related side note - On my dinosaur, I have found the one thing that does work well for keeping it looking good, and that is 303 Aerospace Protectant on the vinyl and rubber. It is like a sunscreen for that material, and it does an excellent job of preserving and even rejuvenating vinyl, rubber, etc. I never, ever use anything from Armorall, which is pure junk. 303 is the real stuff. It actually does something beneficial, instead of just shining it up like Armorall does.

 

[Twisted Sid]

Could we get a little more info on this. What syringe and what type paint?

I dont really know what other info to give... The syringe I used is called a blunt tip. They make them with either a metal or plastic tip. I used a plastic one.
The paint I used was rustolium semigloss black spray paint. I sprayed it into a cutoff plastic water bottle and then sucked it up into the syringe.
You just squeeze the plunger slowly to flood the paint into the groove and use the syringe tip to even out the paint so it doesnt overflow the sides of the groove.

 

[Ghostrider]

Thanks for the update. I actually grabbed some Testor's model paint (looks the same as what I used on model planes growing up) and a micro brush. Going to see how it does

 

[truc.karl]

Looks nice. I would apply a couple of clear coats for durability.

 

[mryeh17]

If you’re considering black but aren’t sure I might try plastidip, I put it on mine and it’s held up well for 5 months. If you don’t like it you can just peel it off


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[Ghostrider]

Testors paint stunk. Looked like a 10 year old did it. Also I decided I did not like silver so I found a few more caps in junkyard and did them in Duplicolor Graphite. This looked a lot better