Looking for a rim to match my 2002 Xtreme. It's 16x8 aluminum, is it painted or machined, or how can i tell?

 

I believe all the Xtreme wheels are painted. The star pattern 5 spoke ZQ8's were the only machined 16's if I'm not mistaken.


I refinished of set for my dad's 94 Sonoma a long while back. The spokes were painted, the lip was machined, and the entire wheel was clear coated. If enough patience is used, you can get great results with a rattle can

 

I found a machined (vs painted) wheel figuring I was going to do some painting anyway. But someone said the backspace was different but I went out and measured. The "frontspace" anyway, is the same.
Blazin, did you sand or prime or anything to make sure the paint adhered to the spokes? How did you get the tires off and back on the wheels?

 

I used paint remover (comes in an aerosol can just like spray paint) to strip the old and flaking paint and clear coat off, tapped off the lip to keep it bare aluminum, scuffed up the spokes to paint with a red scotchbright pad, hit it with a couple coats of filler primer from a spray can (scuffing over it with the red pad between coats), then laid down a couple coats of paint, peeled off the masking to reveal the bare aluminum lip, then sprayed the entire thing down with a few coats of clear.


I work in an auto salvage yard and have a tire machine to pull and reinstall tires on and off wheels

 

The place where I went paints wheels, too. They dip them in acid to get the process started, probably the equivalent of your paint remover spray. Don't know what else they do but it costs $170 per wheel.

I've been looking at youtubes of using Plasti Dip on wheels and man it looks a lot simpler than paint. No sanding, primer... just clean the wheel and spray, wheel still on the car!

 

I would stay away from the Plastidip if you want to finish to actually last... I tried Plastidip on some 17"s I ran on the street on my Tacoma. Came out looking okay, the finish was definitely not as permanent as actual paint though... Scrub just a little too hard when washing and it'll peel right off...















Just ran those when I didn't want to put the highway miles on these

 

I like the look! You painted everything black except the hubcap and the lip? Did you mask the lip or just peel the Plasti dip off?

 

I masked off both the center cap and lip. I wanted a color barrier between the black spokes and the tire, and wanted the center with the logo to pop

 

When you peeled off the tape is there any risk that it will also pull off some Plasti-dip from the unmasked part?

 

If you layer the Plastidip on too thick, yes it is very possible. I put a rather thin layer on (possible why it didn't want to stick too great over time to be quite honest) and had no trouble at all though.