Go faster... Freshen up the Wheels!

Remember when you were a kid and you got a new pair of tennis shoes and you knew you could run waaaay faster than with the old one? Well, I believe it's same with new wheels on a car!

One of things I love about my MGB are chrome wheel trims on the Rostyle wheels. Gives it a nice, classy look.

Since I like the classic look of the Rostyle wheels and there is nothing mechanically wrong with them I decided to freshen them up by painting them.

The wheels were a bit rough, as you can see from the photo, and a little plain. After some thought I made the difficult choice to simply paint the rims all black. This eliminated a lot of template creation, taping, painting with two colors.

I figured with the all black rim, the shiny wheel trims, center cap and lugs these would turn out nice.

I ordered VHT Wheel Paint from Amazon.com. This product provides a chip resistant coating and received good reviews.

Once I received the paint and built my wheel mount...

...off to work I went.

I created a "wheel mount" out of some old scrap wood to place on my table so I have a direct and level shot at the wheels while painting them. This turned out to be a great idea and helped speed the process along.

My process was pretty easy. Clean up and sand the wheel. Set it up on the mount. Place the cardboard paint mask over the tire. And spray...

While watching paint dry is a favorite pastime of mine I decided keep things moving. Now I would prep the next wheel and started the process of removing the rust from the lugs and cleaning up the rest of the brightwork.

Here's a before and after of the lugs:

Not too bad. I used a little water, Bar Keeper's Friend and good ol' elbow grease. You can pick up Barkeeper's Friend at most US supermarkets.

Since I had the wheels off I decide to paint the hubs as well. This gives an overall cleaner look.

Here's the finished product...

For the record the MG doesn't go any faster but it sure feels better with those clean, sleek black wheels.