Wheel Color

I put the car on jackstands and took the wheels off last Saturday.  I took the wheels down to Uncle Packard's friend who owns a tire store.  "Tire guy" cheerfully dismounted the tires for free - he knows I will be buying new whitewalls from him once the wheels are refinished.  He also indicated that finding another wheel to use for the spare should be no problem.  I asked about sandblasting and powdercoating services, and he recommended a local shop owned by a friend of his.  I heard back from "Powdercoating Guy" today... he charges very reasonable prices, and has a variety of colors.

I now need to decide between painting the wheels the body color, or having them powdercoated a different color.  Powdercoating is a environmentally friendly process of applying a thick, shiny layer of tough colored plastic over metal parts, using heat and electrostatic charge.  The finish is significantly more durable than paint.

I'd like the wheels to be either body color, or a close match to one of the interior colors... like the blue-green of the dashboard.  Here are some of my options.

RAL 6000 matches the current dash color, but is has faded in 57 years!

RAL 6004 is a better match to the replacement dash/garnish rail color

This shows the original garnish rail.  The original color can be seen where I removed the chrome strip over the door lock button.  The '57 seat colors are in the middle, and a masking strip with body color on the right.

The RAL numbers are used when mixing powdercoat and varnish.  RAL 6000 seems to be a close match to the current dash, but RAL 6004 is a better match if I recover the dash with new vinyl.   There is no good match for the body color, at least photographically.  The closest I can come is RAL 5018 or 5012.  In any case, I will need to check the samples at Powdercoat Guy's shop to validate the color.

Friday, #1 Son and I plan on disassembling the front suspension.  This will be difficult to do with the engine out of the car, since the weight of the engine helps compress the springs prior to taking the front suspension apart.  I would prefer to do this without the engine in, so I have more room to paint the front chassis and work on the steering.  I talked to Mr. Mechanic about how to do this, and subsequently purchased a special spring compressor tool.

After taking the front end apart, I may find more parts I will want to powdercoat.  I'll either take the wheels to Powdercoat Guy then, or wait until Tire Guy finds me a 5th wheel and have them all done together.

I should also mention that Chrome Guy has been busy, too.  I'll have a separate post on that... but I can tell you that he has more of my money and my bumpers.  There is a special story about the windshield doglegs...

Update 3/26:  I just took the 4 wheels to Powdercoat Guy.  I'm still looking for a 5th, for the spare tire. Powdercoat guy showed me samples for the various colors, and RAL 5051 is a very close match to the body color.  I figure this is a much safer bet than trying to match the dash, so I'm going ahead with body color on the wheels.  This also gives me some flexibility if I ever want to change the color of the dash later.