Going to need new tyres all round soon and my mk2 Golf steel wheels
are looking a bit manky, with small bits of corrision. Is it possible
to refurbish them myself? It doesnt need to be 100% perfect as the car
is old now and worth very little.

ben wrote:

Get an electric drill and wire brush, and some silver paint (hammerite
is pretty good for this, but get the smooth stuff). Take the wheel off,
Wire brush the worst of the rust off, mask the tyres (halfords used to
sell a kit, but you can make do with cardboard, newspaper and masking
tape), and spray them.

thanks got an electric drill so will need to find a wire brush
attachment

quick question if i'm going to get the tyres replaced straight after
spraying do i need to worry about overspray ?

"Chris Bartram" <news (AT) delete-me (DOT) piglet-net.net> wrote

Other options would include using a bit of paint stripper and a clean and
strip disk on an angle grinder, which will leave a bit better finished metal
than the wire brush, but it really depends on what tools you have, and how
well you think you will do getting all the paint stripper off again.

I've always just let tyres down when painting wheels with tyres insitu - the
bead drops back letting you get better coverage of the edge of the rim. I'd
still mask even if replacing the tyres, as you tend to remove masking when
the paint is just drying - if you remove it when things are totally dry, you
can start pulling paint off too. I would expect the same to happen if you
don't mask and then remove the tyres at a later date.

As for painting, it's the usual - prime (with etch primer first if you want
a really solid job), colour and clearcoat. I'd suggest ebay as a good source
of cheap rattle cans of now mildly difficult to get solvent based paint.
Waterbased paint is a pain in the arse for a DIYer.