Any luck painting Alcoa wheels?

The wheels on my truck are far from smooth and shiny, I was thinking of powder coating but, the bake temp is over Alcoa's temp limit.

The next best thing, paint? I know paint doesn't like to stick to bare aluminium, there are companies that "claim" their paint is formulated to work without primer on wheels. Has anyone painted their aluminum wheels and had the paint last with good results?

Steve

 

They may have had a surface treatment or coating on them once, I can say with no doubt they are bare aluminum at this point.

For the sand a polish crowd, they look good for a short time plus, I kinda prefer the bright silver you see on car wheels.

I guess I will just prime them and shoot with 2k, keep the comments coming, never know when a gem will pop up.

Steve

 

I am very familiar with aircraft painting, etching used to be done with citric acid then alodine, not available anymore. In a former life I used to fly for a completion center. I have some epoxy primer, the manufacture says this is better than etching primer of the past? I may actually still have a little bit of alodine, citric acid is the same stuff used to flush aluminum heat exchangers like radiators. The alodine was like an early e-coat, it sealed the oxide layer on the aluminum and bit into both the base metal and paint, it was a light gold wash, anyone with military aircraft experience in the 80's or 90's would recall the finish.

The initial question was spraying a base cost directly on the bare wheel, for car wheels some of the paints sold may work, for a really durable job, there is no cutting corners. The irony is, the materials alone are going to cost me at least twice the cost to powder coat the wheels! Oh well, pay once cry once or something like that.

Steve