# DIY: Painting your replica multi-piece wheels



## c0r3y.af (Oct 8, 2009)

Here's another wheel painting DIY.  I recently bought a set of ASA AR1 wheels for a bargain with a good amount of rash. Cleaned up the lips and wanted to get them powder coated, but couldn't justify paying $300 to powder coat a cheap set of wheels. That's about as much as I paid for them. I decided to use the spray paint method which saved me a ton and gave me decent results. Certainly not perfect, but if I wanted perfection I would pay the money to have them powder coated.


Anyway... Here's what I did...


What you will need:








Can of primer x1
Can of paint x2
Can of clear coat x2
Masking tape x1

Since these were fake splits, I needed to mask the bolts also. These were a pain to do with tape, so I bought a bag of these:









The wire ties were slightly too tight so I bored them out using a drill, and any areas that needed to be trimmed were done with a dremil. They will be a tight fit depending on your bolt size, but you can also try a different type of wire twist. They should be snug enough to be put on by hand or with a soft tap of a rubber mallet. They should not wiggle around.









Time to get started. Here's how they looked before:









Masked off the valve stem:









Masked off the lip. Be careful when masking, obviously if it's not covered it's getting painted:








Note that this was just for pictures. The wheels should be cleaned and slightly sanded/scuffed before painting so the paint will stick.

Almost ready for paint, time to mask the bolts:









During the priming process. Notice how the bolts were covered:









For help with the actual painting process, search for one of the many painting DIY threads here on the tex. I found that it was better to use a bunch of thin coats, rather than using a few thick coats. I used about 3 coats of primer, 7 coats of paint, 4 coats of clear. Spray about a foot and a half away and keep it slow, but thin. You don't want it runny or bubbly.

Here it is after the primer:









All done:

















Just thought I'd post up to show people what I did and hopefully help someone along the way. Feel free to post up any questions or comments. I'll post pics once I get them on the car!


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## thenick (Jun 19, 2004)

They look great, and good idea using the wire taps to cover the fake bolts.


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## c0r3y.af (Oct 8, 2009)

thenick said:


> They look great, and good idea using the wire taps to cover the fake bolts.


Thanks man :thumbup:


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## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2008)

thenick said:


> They look great, and good idea using the wire taps to cover the fake bolts.


Exactly, I'm going to borrow that idea for sure !


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## VW-Pssst (Jun 10, 2007)

thenick said:


> They look great, and good idea using the wire taps to cover the fake bolts.


Genius! too think my only idea for people woulda been to tape em individually! So clever. Well done :beer::thumbup:


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## Niagara_V_Dub (Sep 25, 2007)

DAMN IT ALL!!!!!! Why did I not think of the wire nuts! I already screwed up one wheel worth of fake rivets on my rims trying to get them out. Time to source new ones and use your idea. BRILLIANT!


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## syntax (Oct 26, 2010)

those came out really nice. Why didn't you just remove the bolts, though? I think a VW centercap would be a great addition to these wheels. well done.


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## c0r3y.af (Oct 8, 2009)

Thanks everyone! 



syntax said:


> those came out really nice. Why didn't you just remove the bolts, though? I think a VW centercap would be a great addition to these wheels. well done.


I've heard that they actually are removable but I wasn't sure how to do it and I didn't want to risk breaking/ruining them, so I thought it might be easier/safer to mask them off somehow, which is how I came up with this idea. I wanted to get BBS centers but I don't think they'd fit. VW centers are definitely too small. These ASA ones are pretty large haha


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## syntax (Oct 26, 2010)

c0r3y.af said:


> I wanted to get BBS centers but I don't think they'd fit. VW centers are definitely too small. These ASA ones are pretty large haha


VW centers come in a wide variety of sizes on ebay. BBS would be a bad move on non BBS wheels in my opinion.


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## blkonblk05 (May 13, 2013)

So did anyone find out if the little bolts are removable.


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