[bossbirdta]

anybody have an opinion one way or the other on whats the best paint to use on a rally II?? i'm looking to restore just one KR for the trunk and i'm wondering if one brand or product is better the the other. be it stuff from eastwood,OUR HOST,ames or... CI ect. basically just looking for an OEM type of finish. thanks...

[70FormulaRAIII]

I have the same question. There seem to be a lot of variances between the charcoal colors. I like the lighter shade best. Some look way too dark. Any recommendations on paint and tips/lessons learned on wheel restoration?

[TA455HO]

There's actually three colors involved. Charcoal, Silver (Argent) and a Dove gray on the backside and where the tire mounts. You might try OEMPaints.com as they can make anything you want and they have excellent customer care. Just tell them your car info and they can help you out a lot.

[superdutybob]

I had my wheels media blasted and then had the silver color applied via powder coat. I then masked off the wheel, leaving only the area to get the charcoal exposed. (I thought the wheel masks were more of a pain than just masking it off by hand.) 1/4" pin stripe tape works well for the details around all the curves then just use painters tape to do the rest. I used OEM brand charcoal. I did not bother with the dove gray on the backside. I highly recommend OEM paints but they are expensive. I did two sets of wheels with one can of paint. I clear coated the entire wheel when I was done.

And yes, I did clock the tires relative to the valve stem and then clocked the center cap also.

[PB]

You can get two of the 3 paints easily and cheaply from your local auto parts store. The Argent silver on the spokes is that Truck and Van paint, silver 229. It is an exact match and available at O'reilly's. that is the same paint as 72 gto grill surrounds, and I assume same as what is used on firebird grills. It is also the same paint I have used on my Honeycombs, seen in my pic below. I painted them about 10 years ago, and still hold up nicely.

The Dove gray can be found from Plasti-kote. I can't recall the exact paint number right now, I will have to check when I get home. I will post that when I get that info.

There is much debate as what is correct for the darker area. Just do a search for rally 2 paint, as there is much info on that.

[68bird400HO]

For the dove grey, I have seen a few versions of this. Most of the original wheels I see seem to have a greenish tint to that grey. I found a Rustoleum High Performance Specialty Finish spray paint in Machine Grey that has that greenish tint and is very close to original in shade and in sheen. They only stores I have found it at so far are Fastenal and Grainger. BTW, that same line of paint has a stainless steel color which is a great paint for your bare steel pieces.

[2manyT/A'S]

Manny,Moe & Jack!

[Norwood]

Originally Posted by superdutybob

And yes, I did clock the tires relative to the valve stem and then clocked the center cap also.

Just like Pontiac did it back in 74....LOL

[wbob69]

Originally Posted by superdutybob

I had my wheels media blasted and then had the silver color applied via powder coat. I then masked off the wheel, leaving only the area to get the charcoal exposed. (I thought the wheel masks were more of a pain than just masking it off by hand.) 1/4" pin stripe tape works well for the details around all the curves then just use painters tape to do the rest. I used OEM brand charcoal. I did not bother with the dove gray on the backside. I highly recommend OEM paints but they are expensive. I did two sets of wheels with one can of paint. I clear coated the entire wheel when I was done.

And yes, I did clock the tires relative to the valve stem and then clocked the center cap also.

Beautiful job, they look awesome. I am going to repaint mine next year. I am already putting together next years list of things I want to do, and have not finished this years yet.

[70RAlll]

OEM Paints is my vote.. Their silver is just about dead on. The dove grey is a hard one. It is a strange shade. The guy who did the 70RAIv had it specially matched from an original spare I found him that looked to have never been out of the trunk. He sent me a Quart of it, but it was expensive.. I like the lighter shade of charcoal grey also. I forget who the manufacturer was,but there is one "ralley wheel charcoal grey" that I bought from one of the Pontiac resto ocompanys that turned out looking almost grey/dark brown.. It was horrible. Pissed me off. All the work only to have to redo it again.. Those wheels are ,in my opinion, the hardest piece to restore on these cars.. JMO...

[70FormulaRAIII]

Originally Posted by superdutybob

And yes, I did clock the tires relative to the valve stem and then clocked the center cap also.

You are sick! I love it..lol...and I thought I was OCD. But I can't believe a man with your affliction wouldn't go with the correct dove grey on the back of the wheel How do you sleep at night?

That's the charcoal color that looks the best to me...and also correct from what I have seen. Was there anything special about JW's? Whch is the correct valve stem for 1970: black or chrome?

[70RAlll]

Originally Posted by 70FormulaRAIII

You are sick! I love it..lol...and I thought I was OCD. But I can't believe a man with your affliction wouldn't go with the correct dove grey on the back of the wheel How do you sleep at night?

That's the charcoal color that looks the best to me...and also correct from what I have seen. Was there anything special about JW's? Whch is the correct valve stem for 1970: black or chrome?

Please don't tell me you just asked "black or chrome"?? for the valve stems..... they were black FWIW... GM did not use chrome stems on any Pontiacs in 70-73 that I know of..I think these were aftermarket..

[Transamric]

Another thing about restoring the finish on Rallys, is the amount of gloss to use. The majority of repainted wheels I've seen are way too glossy, almost as glossy as the body paint, or they've been done totally flat. No gloss at all. Another thing that is somewhat hard to get spot on.

[superdutybob]

Originally Posted by 70FormulaRAIII

You are sick! I love it..lol...and I thought I was OCD. But I can't believe a man with your affliction wouldn't go with the correct dove grey on the back of the wheel How do you sleep at night?

That's the charcoal color that looks the best to me...and also correct from what I have seen. Was there anything special about JW's? Whch is the correct valve stem for 1970: black or chrome?

Just don't ask me if I go to the trouble of clocking the whole mess when the car is on the show field. I knew I needed a small floor jack for the car kit! LOL

And NO, valve stems were not chrome. Black baby, black.

[165th]

I have a set of KR wheels that are unrestored in their original finish. Although it's obvious this wheel has been on the ground and probably wasn't a spare, it is in real good shape and unmolested. I put a little rubbing compound (but no wax) on the wheel just to freshen up the existing finish. After compounding, I feel certain that even though the paint is over 35 years old, its the original color, and not faded. The charcoal gray is really not a very exciting color, and not nearly as sexy as some wheels you see done at the shows.

These pictures compare Plasti-Kote 1006 Dark Charcoal Gray Metallic and OEM 11030 Sport Insert Charcoal Gray Metallic. Even though the pictures may not fully tell the story, as Bob and Bill have noted the OEM paint is spot on.

[165th]

So far, for silver, I haven't gotten there yet. The Plasti Kote 1002 Silver is not right (too gray maybe?), and the OEM 11025 Argent Silver green is too green. However, the 11025 is left over from a set of JK '69 TA wheels that I did a few years ago. I believe the early argent green is correct for the early Rally II wheels and then for the later wheels the color changed more to silver. I don't know when this transition was?

I would imagine the OEM 11020 Silver is probably spot on as the OEM charcoal is.

I'll try the O'Reilly's Silver 229 that PB suggested and provide an update.

[TA455HO]

Originally Posted by 68bird400HO

For the dove grey, I have seen a few versions of this. Most of the original wheels I see seem to have a greenish tint to that grey. I found a Rustoleum High Performance Specialty Finish spray paint in Machine Grey that has that greenish tint and is very close to original in shade and in sheen. They only stores I have found it at so far are Fastenal and Grainger. BTW, that same line of paint has a stainless steel color which is a great paint for your bare steel pieces.

Which one, light or dark?

2183 15oz Light Machine Gray Rustoleum Spray Paint
Manufacturer: RUSTOLEUM CORPORATION
SKU: 67222

2187 15oz Dark Machine Gray Rustoleum Spray Paint
Manufacturer: RUSTOLEUM CORPORATION
SKU: 67223

[eaglesan13]

I took my rims to a local sandblaster to have them blasted. They offered to primer the rims for an additional ten dollars each and gave me a choice of black or gray primer. I picked the gray and they were pretty close in color to the original gray. So, I painted the silver and charcoal, then just sealed the gray primer with the satin clear. Not dead on, but pretty close.

[68bird400HO]

Originally Posted by TA455HO

Which one, light or dark?

2183 15oz Light Machine Gray Rustoleum Spray Paint
Manufacturer: RUSTOLEUM CORPORATION
SKU: 67222

2187 15oz Dark Machine Gray Rustoleum Spray Paint
Manufacturer: RUSTOLEUM CORPORATION
SKU: 67223

Umm.......I guess I didn't realize there were two. They only had the one at the store I went to and they let me test spray it. I have 6 KN rims and, like I mentioned above, there seems to be different grays on some of them. I had a rim with me that had a darker grey and looked original and the spray paint I tested came out a bit lighter than that, but close, but, looked even closer to a few of the other rims I have that also look original. It seems to be in the zone there somewhere. Based on the fact that it is on the lighter side of the rim I had with me, I think it was the light machine gray. I would be curious to see how much darker the dark machine gray is if I can find it locally. Dens71TA used PlastiKote Federal Gray on his (which was a recommendation on an older PY thread). We compared our wheels and agreed that this Rustoleum looked a lot closer.

I added a few pictures. In the first one, the wheel on the left shows the area I test sprayed versus the wheel on the right which is an original paint wheel. Pretty close. However, in the second picture I rotated the test wheel so you can see the original gray. It is a shade darker. In the third picture, I took the wheel outside and the sunlight really brightens up the machine gray paint vs the darker gray on this test wheel. You can see the test paint starting about where the rightmost big spotweld is, going toward the valve stem hole. The questions is, was there only one gray used for the backsides of these wheels?

[666 the legend]