Blacking out the wheels

[isaac]

I've got the standard GS "X spoke" 5 star wheels on my 750, and am considering blacking the wheels out when I take off the front one to change the tire out. It'd be a matte black, no shine. Has anybody here done this or has a picture of the finished product? Thanks for the help.

[Wingnut]

isaac,

I took the same wheels you have and refinished them. It's a ton of work but they look excellent. You need 320, 600, 1200, and 2000 wet/drysand paper. Wet sand the aluminium parts real good with the 320 until you remove all of the corrosion. The first sanding takes the longest. Then procede to sand again using the 600 to remove the 320 scratches, then the 1200 etc. until you finish with the 2000. On the spokes you may want to start with 220 because they have machining marks that need to be removed. Then I bought these 2" sewn cloth mini buffs, a polishing coumpound and a mandrel from Eastwood to use in a die grinder. Buff the areas with these and it looks just like chrome. Then tape off the polished areas and paint with SEM or Transtar car exterior trim paint from a rattle can. Excellent lasting paint, not shinny not dull. Your rims will look better than when they were new. It is however about 6 hours to sand, two hours to buff, an hour to tape off, 30 min. to spray two coats. For one wheel!

[KEITH KRAUSE]

No, never saw a black matte finish.
If you want to see a good pic' of these wheels polished and with gloss black powdercoating, check out my website.
Just click the WWW symbol below.

[bgmart450]

No, never saw a black matte finish.
If you want to see a good pic' of these wheels polished and with gloss black powdercoating, check out my website.
Just click the WWW symbol below.

\

Wowowow....

What was the process for that like? Which came first the powder coating or the polishing? Did you polish the wheels yourself? Do you actually get to ride? I did some polishing, but dayum you gottalotta shiny bits....

[KEITH KRAUSE]

No, never saw a black matte finish.
If you want to see a good pic' of these wheels polished and with gloss black powdercoating, check out my website.
Just click the WWW symbol below.

\

Wowowow....

What was the process for that like? Which came first the powder coating or the polishing? Did you polish the wheels yourself? Do you actually get to ride? I did some polishing, but dayum you gottalotta shiny bits....

Thanks! The wheels were first polished and then powdercoated. A local shop did the wheels. Removing the stock machined finish was a lot more work than I wanted to tackle.
The shop does some of the best work I've ever seen. The price was $140 per wheel. Just the masking is a lot of work. You can look close and there's not the smallest flaw where the polishing meets the powdercoating. I'm really happy with 'em. I plan to always have the bike and didn't cheat on anything. I wanted to keep the look, but improve on the finish.
I keep the wheels and other parts shiny with my drill mounted buffs and a little bit by hand. It's work, but it keeps me from lying around watching tv and eating chips. So polishing parts not only get you compliments, it's healthy too!

[solo suzuki]

Re: Blacking out the wheels

... and am considering blacking the wheels out... Has anybody here done this or has a picture of the finished product? Thanks for the help.

[isaac]

Just as I thought: That bike looks BAD@SS! Thanks for the pic, Solo.

[Anonymous]

how yu doin' Isaac,
I don't mean to change your mind but, have you seen any " color co-ordinated " rims ?
I know Kawasaki do green, I think it looks a heap cleaner than black.
My son has a 2000 zx9r with black rims, fairdinkum, it looks dirty to me.
BMW did white for a while, maybe still do, but that ( to me ) was so clean.
What color is your bike ?....... perhaps a contrasting color would look gnawly.
Anyway, just an idea........ good luck with the project.

stay upright

[isaac]

Fox, my bike is a bizarre metallic pea green, as seen here:

What I'm going for with painting them matte black is to try to make a continuity of black between the tires and the wheels, which would help to modernize it by visibly reducing the size of the wheels through tricking the eyes.

Of course I'll be ditching the garish raised white letter front tire to pull off the look. The replacement is sitting in my garage right now.

I'd also wonder about how it'd look. Maybe I'll try to p-shop my rims green to see what happens.

[solo suzuki]

hey isaac,
looks to me like that front end is from a gs1100e
fender, antidive and all...

[Macmatic]

Nice looking 245 in the background too. Looks like an '86 or newer but with Turbo rims added?

[Jethro]

looks to me like that front end is from a gs1100e

Yeah, 83 even.

[isaac]

Holy crap guys, that's nuts. You really think this bike has a totally different front end? What's different about it?

Mac, thanks for noticing the car. That's my 83 245DL with Turbo wheels and bumpers halfway color keyed to the body like an 850. I've also turbocharged the high compression motor on it to 15psi boost and added bigger exhaust and a higher lift, longer duration camshaft (in case you wanted to know). It's run a 14.59@95mph in the quarter so far. Stock I did an 18.5@72.

Kinda weird a Volvo guy with a bike eh? Check out www.turbobricks.com if you want to know more about them. I've got like 2,500 posts on there.

[robinjo]

[solo suzuki]

Holy crap guys, that's nuts. You really think this bike has a totally different front end? What's different about it?

your bike came with a leading axle (like a cruiser!) no anti dive and a different fender
(this one had a katana unit but that's 'cause i'm obsessed!) 8O