Step 5: Wheels and Tires Continued!

After much discussion, we have decided to repaint the entire Mirage. I decided that to stay true to the original color, to paint the wheels to match the entire rig, rather than the gray color the wheels were on the Dolphin. So I went to town to get a paint match to the original Mirage color so I could start on the wheels.

With the wheels sanded and primed, I was ready to go with paint code 1884 041 new white. I dug out my painting equipment that has been hiding in a storage box for years and went to it! And they turned out fantastic!
I went and got my wife to check it out. She came up, and said "wow", and then she told me "the white is too white"....."they need to be more creamy". I went back to the tag under the hood, and there was one other paint code, 1984 033. The next day we went to town and bought the 033 paint, but since I had to go to work the next day, I couldn't repaint for several days.

Several days later, I again prepped the wheels for paint and shot them. I know you can't really tell by the picture, but they are now a beautiful creamy white.

I then turned my attention to the truck body. I need to remove all of the original striping, prep and paint the body.

After removing the side mirrors, I discovered some rust under where the mirror brackets bolt to the doors. So I sanded down the rust until I got shiny metal, for the most part, and then sprayed the rusty areas with "Rust Reformer".

I also rubbed down the doors and front fenders with Enamel reducer to remove and wax, this will help reduce "fish eye" when we do the final paint. I need to find a new hood, the current one is banged up, and has some issues on the engine side. So I will go see if I can find a good hood in a couple of days when I mount the tires on the fresh painted rims.That's all for now, see you in a few days.