G'day
As the subject line would indicate, I am looking for a rattle can of paint to match the standard colour for Hydras on my 940T. I've used a number of CTC types before that are close, for my 240 and 740s, but CTC have completely changed their paint lineup recently. Also, the matches I came up with previously all seemed to have a fair bit of "sparkle" in the paint, which is not great.
Anyone got some paint colour solutions? I actually thought about painting them appliance white, but think I will stick with the silver....
Thanks
John D.

I haven't had to find olor yet for the volvo, but on my 80 camaro a few years back ,the napa store mixed me an exact color match, It costed me $10 at that time with my family discount. With a coat of clear, the trunklid matched the rest of the body. If your napa store does mixing, I would go there, more money but an exact color match.

Hi John,

I noticed that CT had changed their paint line as well. The finer metalics are only available in automotive paint and can either be loaded into a spray boom for you (these are unhardened enamels and are OK for wheels) or you can get a bit more and spray it with a gun (this is what I do) - that way you can add hardener and get a more durable paint. Be careful with this stuff, not good for you without a proper charcoal mask at the VERY least. For wheels, this is what I usually use. For painting a car I've got a fresh air system.

The wheels you have are most likely powder coated and will be hard to match.

Craig

Thanks Craig, but I am just going to have to find a close rattle can. I'm not a painter and don't have the equipment or skill for it. I do have a powdercoat setup, and did a lot of the detail on the 1800 with it. I really like the results; I have an old oven hooked up to 240 in the garage, so its pretty easy. But for this job, I just want to fix a bunch of curb rash on all 4 of these wheels with JB, and use some CTC paint to dress them up some. If I can't find a close match in silver, maybe I will go with the appliance white, and paint the centers as well. It's the centers that have me looking for a close silver match; when I painted the 240 and 740 wheels, they looked great, but the centers were OEM colour and did not quite match the rest of the wheel. If I paint everything white, no problem.

Craig, what is this "spray boom" you refer to? Is this a typo, or are you talking about a preloaded rattle can, made to order with colour of choice? Who does that kind of thing in the frozen north?
JD

These are custom loaded bombs made by paint supply stores for body shops. Phone around and see who still does them. It varies by region, but there are a couple of places locally that still do this trick and for wheels they are a pretty good (albeit not cheap) option. You'll need at least 3 bombs to do your wheels - so factor this in when you price it all out.

Craig, adding to the discussion, I have a set of Sirius rims that I am going to paint following your wheel resto guide. I already bought Dupli-Color Wheel Paint at CT as well as the DC primer and clear. Is this going to give decent results or should I try and return it and get something else? The wheels are in rough shape so matching is not an issue as they will be totally redone.

I've used the Duplicolor on some things...but it doesn't compare to a real hardened urethane. For a cost estimate, my winter Tethys cost me $80 to paint (including hardener and paint). They survived mounting the tires and I'm sure will look great for years. The rattle can paint I've used from Duplicolor is a lacquer and chips very easily. You could go with a hardened enamel and it would only cost $50 for paint for the set...which is close to what it would cost for the rattle cans.

[quote="JayDee24ca"]Craig, what is this "spray boom" you refer to? Is this a typo, or are you talking about a preloaded rattle can, made to order with colour of choice? Who does that kind of thing in the frozen north?
JD

Napa does but not all napa's do, coaldale doesn't but lethbridge does.

I ground out all th egouges on this set of Hydras from the 91 940T I got from VAncouver last spring. Looked like a rat had chewed them all the way round. I primarily ised a dremel flap sander with 80 grit, and lots of manual sanding. Filled the imperfections (bloody great gouges) with judicious amounts of JB weld as recommended by Craig. Copius sanding and shaping followed. I used CTC wheel paint to shoot them, two rattle cans. DOn't know if its laquer or emamel, but it sure doesn't smell like the latter, and the can says don't top with a laquer coat, so who know. I wore an organic vapour mask while I was going them. Had to let them air dry under an IR heater in teh shop for a few hours, then moved them into the house. While SWIMBO was out tonight I tried to sneak them into the oven, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately)they are too big for the oven. SO I will let them gas off and harden another few days, then get some skins thouwn on them. Hopefully they paint will last a while. THey sure look good (maybe a bit sparkly for my taste), but I can remember changing tires back in 1970 when I worked in a gas station, and the iron bar we used peeled the paint of those old steelied just like peeling a spud.
Hopefully the new tire changing technology is a bit less radical! I'm going try to post a coulple of pictures here of the finsihed product, but have no idea how to do it so it may not work. Bear with me.
[IMG]http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/JayDee24ca/Volvo%
20940T/hydrarefurbish2.jpg[/IMG]

Looks excellent - amazing what can be done with a CTC rattle can. It's a good thing your wife was out...the oven would have been too hot for "baking" yor wheels. They get plenty hard enough with just room temperature chemical reactions.

Thanks Craig, I take that as a great compliment, coming from the master! You should have seen how chewed up those rims were before I filled them. Problem now is, I will never know how good they would have been had I painted them appliance white......
JD