I plan to go with the chrome beauty rings with the steel center hubcaps on my 240 sedan. This means I'll need to clean up and paint my stock steel wheels with that silver/gray color they had when new. Does anyone out there know what color it's called and where I can purchase it from?

Thanks for looking and your suggestions.
--
'86 sedan with 447,000 miles on the original engine and automatic transmission

can't answer your question but just a comment-if I was going to do it, my daughter would want pink rims. What can I say?

I've used Krylon Aluminium bombs to paint rims, with good results.

Marten

I tried to repaint my steel wheels with poor results. I used steel wool on their face because it would get into the tight spots real well. Then I used ordinary enamel spray paint in the nearest shade I could find. I say poor results because the slight rust that was on the wheels and which I thought I had gotten off came back in less than a year.

Since that experience I approached a wheel repair shop about getting the wheels sand blasted and refinished. I was told that powder coating, as used on frames and suspension parts in restoration work, was a better approach because it was a harder finish than paint. Power coat is actually a melted pastic coating.

As far a color matching goes, a shop with computer color matching should be able to duplicate it exactly.

Yo Bob! When I can find it, Duplicolor makes a spray called, of all things, SteelWheels. I've even used it on alloys with a clear top coat. Rust-O-Leum has a high performance wheel paint, number 248927 that is called "steel". AutoZone has it on the shelf. I also regularly use regular Rust-O-Leum aluminum color. It leaves that slightly textured finish--or you can top coat. Any HD or Lowes has that.

One more: I love to use the hammered finish paints on all sorts of stuff, including wheels. Rust-O-Leum has a dark gray that is one of my favorites for engine stuff and they have a silver too. We did the dark gray with beauty rings and large centers on my wife's 83 white wagon--very pretty.

DS

I like a color sold by a couple of rattle can manufacturers called "dull aluminum". It's not exactly the same as original but has a nice cast aluminum finish. It starts off a bit shiny but cures to look right in a day or two. -- Dave

I've been tempted lately to paint the rims black on my 83 so the chrome stands out more. Not sure if it would look bad or not. I change rims so often with jy tires that doing a nice finish would be useless. But since these colors can be had locally for pretty cheap rather than expensive online purchase a follow up silver would be a simple fix.

Black would look like this with caps and rings.