Originally Posted by Jeremy5848

Rather than start another thread, I'll post here what I did at home for a few dollars. Two of the Bundt cake-pan wheels on my W123 were OK, two were pretty bad. I didn't want to pay a lot of money and have them gone and the car undriveable for who knows how long. I even thought of buying or borrowing a couple of wheels to use while mine were gone.

Finally, I decided to try painting them myself. What the heck -- I couldn't make the situation worse, right? First, I took the DuPont color number G8081 (from someone on this forum) to Hawley's Paint here in Santa Rosa. They mixed up a pint of DuPont "Centari" acrylic enamel and put some of it in a spray can for me. I also bought a spray can of enamel clearcoat.

At home, I removed the wheels and scrubbed them -- 409 cleaner, steel wool, light sandpaper, etc., and a nasty solvent called "water" (dissolves almost anything). After the wheels dried, I started masking. First, a layer of masking tape, which did not stick well to the rubber tire. Good thing I don't use Armour-All, the tape would not have stuck at all! Then I wrapped the tire and wheel in plastic and cut an opening, taping the plastic to the first layer of tape. Photo #1 shows the result.

Photo #2 shows a closeup of how bad the wheels were and also the plastic tube that I stuck over the valve stem. Once the masking was done, I put an old cardboard box (conveniently the right size, 24"x24") over the tire and wheel to act as a mini-spray booth (I was painting in the driveway). Then I sprayed on the paint (see photo #3).

The paint was allowed to dry overnight and I then applied the clearcoat. It crinkled the color in a couple of places; I probably should have waited another day (patience is not my thing). While the clearcoat was drying, I cleaned the (cadmium plated) lug bolts with 0000 steel wool and Mothers Aluminum and Mag Polish and clearcoated them.

The result, shown in photo #4, cost about $45 for two wheels and there was enough to do all four if I had needed to. The color match is somewhere between "very close" and "identical." Tonight the wheels go back on the car and tomorrow I drive it.

Jeremy