I want to have my wheels professionally refinished, and I would like them to be painted the correct factory color and finish. Does anyone have the paint code?

 

Hello,

Those rims are Anodized, not Powder Coated like most shops do, and it is a lot more resilient than a factory finish. The problem is that there is a very limited set of colors that powder coating offers, so you will have to check with the shop that will do your rims, which colors they offer, and what process they use. There is no factory spec on what color they are supposed to be as far as I am aware.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

"Hyper silver" is a match any wheel restoration shop will easily be able to paint them same as OEM.

 

Wow, I had no idea they were anodized. That may explain the discrepancy of the finish between the OEM NOS center caps I've been finding online, and the refurbished wheels sold by third parties that look more glossy.

I just bought one of the NOS center caps. My plan is to take my set of four super faded wheels and center caps (which I got for a total of $20!) to a wheel shop and have them exactly match the paint to the NOS center cap.

Any idea if they wheels' original finish was glossy, semi-gloss, satin, or matte?

 

Here is one for the reference, I will let you be the judge of it..

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133987256029

If nothing else, you can take the Lexus logo off of center caps and have them painted as well, though you will have to see how they tolerate temperature to see if they can be powder coated, it would pay off to have a couple of spare beat-up ones to train on.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

I'm surprised to hear they anodized, and that the finish is apparently not as durable as powder coating. They look painted to me. I've painted several wheel sets myself with gloss (including clear) they end up looking like OEM.

 

So old hard to tell!

I painted these wheels with this paint, you decide if they are "gloss" or not




Factory coating on these wheels the hyper silver looks very similar

 

At least as far as I can tell they are anodized, the thickness of the coat is not even close to that of the powder coating. And in newer rims, like on 3rd-gen Coach and Platinum editions, the very fine machining that gives them a distinct look is borderline impossible to do with powder coating, as it will simply fill it all up. Anodizing is just an oxide layer on Aluminum, it is very thin, hence why it's not as durable.

 

I have these wheels they are both machined and painted (or anodized?) depending on area of wheel the "paint" as you know flakes easily. So maybe you are right that is anodizing, it sure doesn't hold up well.

 

How is that for a newer reference?

http://www.toyota.co.jp/jpn/company/...339/html5.html

Those both look gorgeous! I wish it was as easy to restore my rims, yet again, they won't look nearly as good, even if I could get them anodized again, corrosion already wiped parts of the machined features, only way is to find replacements..

 

Thanks! Here's the set of wheels I just bought...








Here's the NOS center cap...



The plan so far is to have them power-coated and paint-matched to the center cap.

 

^^ That's about typical for the year, they need some TLC. In my area all the wheel restoration shops have horrible reputations that's why I did the work myself, I'd rather not. Those caps look exactly like Dupilcolor hyper silver.

Wow nice find. It must have been a real treat to own these cars when new.
I painted mine the none machined parts, now they are peeling again. I was very careful didn't matter, something about the aluminum doesn't like paint. Don't know what to do. The Duplicolor paint is super easy to use I got a nice even finish without much effort. Of course the prep is 95% of the work but the paint itself is good quality.

 

Any advice on making the center emblems gold? I would obviously prefer just buying gold ones, but the dealer doesn't have them and I can't find NOS ones anywhere online.

 

Troll Ebay to try and find knock-offs.

 

What primer do you use?

As far as my understanding goes, Aluminum is never completely free of surface corrosion, it takes mere seconds for it to reappear after you sand it, which makes working with it a little trickier than usual. They do make special primers for aluminum, but some say that a good quality self-etching primer should work as well, though it won't be as good it seems.

The emblems are secured from the back with melted studs, if you carefully drill those out, the emblem itself comes off pretty easily, then you can do whatever you need with it. So long as you use some good quality paint with 2K clear coat, it will last you a pretty good while.

Hope this helps and best of luck!