Check out my painted rims!!

[jesteratc]

So after getting my festiva thru inspection....and failing. I needed breaks all around, new calipers, new brake lines...at least only 1, fix the e brake, and new struts.

But the important part was after we finish, myself, with the help of my parents.....at there house and there garage lol; were able to shine the old girl up with some washing and waxing. As well as paint those ugly stock rims.

The rims are now gold as you can see, we also polished the ford center caps, and painted the lug bolts silver.

What do you guys think?

Before:



After:








Also check out my kick but 80's hairband hahaha.

[festivaWES]

Yeah, I was just gonna flame you for that hairand!!! LMAO!!

Wheels look great though!

[25Horseplay]

Definatley an improvement!

[skimsucka]

are your lug studs new if so where did you get them ? or did you paint them -- car looks great

[shawnw]

looks, good, now you just need a WRX hood scoop.

[jesteratc]

I painted the lug studs. 5 mins worth of work, course....the next time i take them off they're gonna get all scratched up

And yes,,,a STI hood scoop would be sweeeet.

I thought about putting the subaru rally graphics on the side, but replacing the subaru with FORD.

Anyone with photoshop skillz?

[cubstiva1]

looks really nice, you look like a Notre Dame fan

[jesteratc]

Im not much of a sports person...and when i go to my job thats full of eagles and phillies fans its kinda difficult when you dont watch sports haha. Lots of confrenations because of that lol

[TominMO]

Haha, you can't fool me, you switched cars!

[jesteratc]

lol wut haha.

[freshtiva]

Festivas take kindly to TLC. They will return the favor many times over !! Looks real nice !!

[freshtiva]

Oh yeah, get something for the bumpers. It will make a lot of difference.

[collegeboi]

I am actually thinking about doing the same thing. Can you tell us the process you did? Like sand,prime,paint(layers?), and clear?

[festyxfi]

Those look great. Good job!...

[jesteratc]

I would love to get something to make the bumpers a litte darker. Possibly more spraypaint.

Lets see...as far as the process for painting the rims.

We went down to the local hardware store, bought some quick drying spray paint. Compared to the other cans this actually looked more like a green gold. But im happy i got this one.

The wheels were just a little greasy. So we sprayed some de-greaser on them and let them sit for a little while...like 2 mins.

We used a very stiff brush to clean Just the outside face of the rims.

If you scrub hard enough the stock paint on the rims will come off. But i didnt care, i was painting them anyway.

Be sure to tape off the valve stems. As to look a little more professional.

As far as making sure paint didnt get all over the tires as we painted the rims. We used some very thin aluminum sheet metal, and bent it around the outer lip, then taped it off at the seam.

These rims only have 1 coat on them. But they came out perfect in my opinion. We let them dry in the sun for about 20 mins. It was sunday, so it was the perfect day to do this.

Lugs were the same. Just painted them silver instead of gold. The lugs we used a wire wheel on the grinding wheel to polish them up a bit, and they just spraypainted right over top.

All in all it was maybe 1 hr to do all of them, but since i already had the car up on stands, and the wheels off i saved a little bit of time.