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Has anyone sandblasted a set of steel Clipper rims (55) and painted them with epoxy primer? I'm pretty sure that the sealing bead is pitted because I have three that will not hold air and leak around the bead. If so, what type of primer did you use, and how much of it for 5 wheels? Also, I have heard that you need to color coat epoxy primer soon after spraying since it is UV sensitive and will begin to degrade; true?
Thanks,
John

I had my rims glass blasted, and painted with epoxy primer, then primed again and painted. The tire store insisted on putting tubes in my radial tires that I've been using for 8 years without them, but no problem with air lose. My 39 kept eating tubes when I put radials on it - the problem was the rust pitting. On that car, I put spot primer in the pitted areas, and painted them with rattle can primer and then black. That was two years ago, and no more damaged tubes. I'll get the type of primer later this morning when I go out to the garage.

We used to either glass bead them or chem-strip (then finish glass bead) rims and epoxy prime. If there are pits on the inside sealing surface of the rim we would spray K36 build up primer (sandable) over the pitted surface and sand back to the original height, filling all the pits and making the sealing surfaces like new. Then paint with color. That took care of the leakers.

If you want a tenacious filler try West Systems G-Flex.

It would work best on blasted rims, but will also work on rims dressed with sandpaper and especially around the rivets.

The stuff is amazing.

Lord 304 will also work very well. You will find a 1001 uses for that stuff.

I had to locate 5 original steel wheels for my Clipper David and once I rounded them all up, I had them all sand blasted first and then I rattle can primed them with Dupli-color self etching primer. There wasn't any excessive pitting in the bead area and right before I was ready to apply the color paint, I sanded them with 400 paper and steel wool. I had ordered Restoration Shop acrylic enamel from TCP Global but they somehow or another sent polyurethane instead and forgot to send the hardener. In the end, I think the poly paint worked out well for the wheels and seemed to flow and fill imperfections better than acrylic enamel. When it came time to mount the tires, the subject of using tubes never surfaced and so far none of the 4 on the car are leaking air. I was a little concerned about 3 of the wheels because they were assembled with rivets but again, the poly paint seemed to fill in around the rivet heads nicely so I felt like they would hold air just fine.

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Another great product is Marine-Tex. I have no association with the company, just a long time satisfied customer.

Tom