"Home Made Tricks"-- Lets see 'em! : Painting your steelies

Edited: 8/17/2008 3:18:23 PM by dragggn

O.K. so I'm at work right now, nothing much going on.. 12 hrs of nothing...
Notices some guys on here with some sloppy spraypainting skills on stock rims,, so i thought i would offer up this gem.

Take the rim/tire off of the truck. Sand,scotch-bright,clean the hell out of it... Lay it down flat.. (heres the super clever part-->) steal your Wife's (or Mom's) dish soap, Dawn works great... and brush it all over your tires. take your time, get a good coat on them, make sure you do a nice job up next to the lip. Spray away with what ever paint you prefer, be it rattle can or if you even popped for the real stuff. Now just let them dry, and head for the car wash.. the "liquid mask" did its job, kept you from having to unmount/remount your tires... and your tires will be SUPER CLEAN after soaking in soap for a few hrs.

Any one got any other "home made" tricks?? lets hear 'em!!

100 people have looked, and NO ONE has any Backwoods, Redneck, "teck" their willing to admit to?

depending on the weather, either let them in the sun for awhile before taking them in to spray, or put a shop lamp directly on them to warm them up, seems to help the paint stick on thicker with less sagging, especially in metallic spray bombs. works great for hubcaps also.

heres another one my buddy uses often, he worked at a paper mill and got these scotch brite pads that were even less aggressive than the red or grey ones. he used them after doing a flat black spray can job going over the whole vehicle with them and it seemed to even out all the overspray areas really well.

back when i worked at the local motorcycle dealer, we had people coming in a lot pissed off cuz they're somewhat-new-tires were dry rotting....turns out they mounted they're tires themselves and used dish soap as a lube to help mount...being that dish soaps are degreasers, and the tires are petroleum based, it sped up the dry rot....i would assume that same principle would apply to this too....works great but could do more damage in the long run.


would tire shine/ protectant work too?

Edited: 8/17/2008 5:18:49 PM by dragggn

Originally posted by RangerOn18Cobras



back when i worked at the local motorcycle dealer, we had people coming in a lot pissed off cuz they're somewhat-new-tires were dry rotting....turns out they mounted they're tires themselves and used dish soap as a lube to help mount...being that dish soaps are degreasers, and the tires are petroleum based, it sped up the dry rot....i would assume that same principle would apply to this too....works great but could do more damage in the long run.

would tire shine/ protectant work too?good point on the Dish soap-- never thought of that!!!yea i bet a heavy coat of Armor All (or what have you) would do the same!!

I really thought his thread would take off!! I know we all do "out of the box" thinking to get stuff done here in the no money minitruck world..

I know i didnt make it clear at first, but the "tip" on painting wheels was just an example, I'm looking for ALL of the goofy, "but hey- it works bad ass" ideas....

Thanks so far!!

when i was workin paintin cranes tractors and other heavy equip we painted the wheels and the tires once the paint was dry we took black indoor outdoor house paint and brush painted the tires once it dried they look better then new tires and not cheesy

ok, i got one for the fabricators, when I did my suicide doors, i needed to make ensure that the door wont hit the panel behind it when opened. so I welded to 1x1 together like a "T" and cut out one end to mirror the doors edge and used a magnet and stuck it to the verticle piece of flat stock that was clamped to the top and bottom hinge. Also, i did the doors by myself so I built a door holder to use with the floor jack when it came time to move it around..>) Enjoy