AJS & Matchless Owners Club

I need to restore the wheel rims on my 1955 G9, which have maroon-painted centres. I will have the rims re-chromed and will mask it all and rough up the chrome to get a key and apply etch primer before putting on the top coat. Has anyone successfully done this and if so, what top-coat paint did you use? The cheapest would be to get a rattle can of the nearest available maroon colour and possibly put clear laquer on top to help protect it. I have no idea if this will be hard wearing enough for the wheel rims. I don't want to have to strip the wheels apart again to re-do it if it all comes off in a couple of years!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

When you send the rims for charming tell the company that you intend to paint the centres then they wont polish that area. That will suit the fine because polishing the centres knackers their mops. When I did this job about 12 years ago I used thin lining tape on the rim then masked the new polished part of the rim leaving the unpolished part of the rim exposed. I gave it a couple of coats of etching primer then about three coats of gloss . Black in my case. Aerosol can then removed all masking and applied the lining between chrome and painted centre using self adhesive lining tape in the correct colour. Saw the bike at last years jampot and looked as good as when I did it twelve years ago

Hi Laxy

That is really helpful. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

The rims haven't rusted at all in the painted centre section of the rims, so this shouldn't need polishing anyway, just the old paint and chrome removing. It sounds like the aerosol can paint is up to the job if it is prepared properly. I can hopefully find a suitable match at halfords from the huge range of colours.

Thanks again,

Dave