princelybug

iTrader: (16)

Painting the shoes?

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

OMG, HOW DID YOU GUESS

Yes, time to paint zee shoes

bzyrice

iTrader: (10)

Whoa ur painting them a shiny gold?

o4Komodo

iTrader: (2)

You are going to remove an aircraft!

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

No, no, no, OMG, no! While the cap depicts a more mirror like gold, the final finish is far from it. The gold, however, favor more yellow then orange, which is what I am seeking (after about a 3 month review of about 6 different gold possibilities)

Scrap for parts
Continue modding

Who's with me?

dwb993

iTrader: (13)

Dan truly is the "Fearless DIY Guy"!!!!

GoldnKnight22

I say do the gold chrome.

Esper.ice

DM, your hitting all the mods I've planned to do which has made it infinitely easier to plan and create! Thanks for the great DIYs. Yesterday I received my bag of 100 hundred water clear leds which makes me want to light off all my fireworks for one grand finally so I can start modding immediately.

khz213

wow incredible. i love the switches and the ass of your car haha so did you intentionally plan on matching your car with your house? Btw any pics of how the gold would look like? I recently painted my stockies the duplicolor bronze.

j1n

iTrader: (1)

wow very impressed by your work. also very unique TL.

Carlitos30

iTrader: (1)

good job bro....

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

Just a quick update, fellas, thanks for the comments as always.

The wheels have been painted and the headliner vinyl has been installed. I need to pic something up before I can post the pics up as my centercaps are proving to be a little more difficult then anticipated (of course).

Oh, and as a side note: DON'T EVER FREAKING TRY TO STRIP THE CLEARCOAT/PAINT FROM THESE WHEELS.

More to come.

gerzand

iTrader: (3)

Yeah, for that matter never try and strip or mediablast ANY oem Acura wheel. I also went through a horror story, even though it all worked out in the end!

Acura uses a WICKED basecoat! lol

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

Allllllrigtty, time for the post-weekend update. I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th and still has all of their digits attached.

Ok, let's start off with what seemed like a good idea, but turned out to be a total nightmare. So, I was ALLLLL sorts of gung-ho about painting the wheels, and like a good little modder, wanted to make certain I really did the wheel painting correctly, so how better to do this then to strip it, no? WRONG. Holy shit, what a bad idea.

So, let's take a look at what ATTEMPTING to strip the wheels does







WHAT THE HELL? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, DO NOT EVER, EVER. EVER TRY TO STRIP YOUR WHEELS. Why? They use nuclear-grade basecoating on the OE wheels. I am guessing this has something to do with some low-life POS that smashed their car and claimed that the 0.001mm of rust on their OE wheel caused their vehicle to plummet in to a ditch, and some lawyer got the proverbial lightbulb and sued company 'x', thereby requiring the industry to use said pseudo-teflon on the wheels. Whatever. Two wheels took some 10 recoats of stripper, a boatload of sweat, and finally, FINALLY, after some 12 hours of intense labor and a bevy of chemical burns, we got there. FUCK MY LIFE.





So, the missus asked what I wanted for my B-Day, and I told her 'backup and wheel paint.' Now she knows what this means.



Finally, some 16 hours later, we were approaching the finish line.

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

Once the wheels were knocked out of the way, it was time for the vinyl overlay. This was actually easy as hell, with the exception of my uber-cheapness kicking in, and having my vynil a tad too short to save a few extra bucks. No worries, there's always a work-around







Lastly, it was time for some centercap action. With those nice wheels, time to get things all tied together, no? I decided to 'flip' the colors to give some additional contrast.



I also decided to sand, repaint, clear, wetsand, and polish alllll of the interior panels again. As you can see, the original coat did not take well in spite of my priming efforts.



...aaaaaaand, since we were at it, might as well add some Second Skin Overkill Pro that I had left over from the door to replace the OE gauze. I've got all my scraps, so like a Native American would say, 'use all parts of the buffalo'. Wise words.

Aman

You know, a lot of the mods you have in theory kinda seem sketchy to me: The taillights, rear mesh, and now these wheels. BUT you somehow manage to make it come out ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. How you manage to do this is beyond me. You have the creativity and imagination of most teenagers doing up their cars ( a good thing), and combine it with professional, high-quality building and engineering. I tip my hat to you, sir.

EDIT: Stupid of me to think you only did the wheels and called it an update. Of course there's more...

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

Finally, the money shots. I'm on the fence with the wheel color...what do you think?

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

Haha, thank-you much, my friend! The trouble with modding is that I have a final idea in my head, but I only have so much free time, so I'm forced to peice-meal the whole thing...thanks for the kind words! I am still somewhat unsure about the color of the wheels, though. I thought this would look one way, it's not quite what I expected.

Stay tuned, I'm wrapping things up on the front end next weekend!

Phambam12

the front shots of the rims look good but the back shots look unbalanced because the tail lights dont go with the rims. hard to explain lol

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

FUCK. You nailed it, man. My wife and I had like a 10 minute conversation trying to pin the precise reason for which it did not look right...you just summed it up.

Looks good from the side due to the limited contrast...from the rear, the overload of b/w creates imbalance with the rest of the car.

Grrrrrrr...I don't know when the hell I am gonna repaint the wheels, but I gotta repaint the wheels.

o4Komodo

iTrader: (2)

They look good but doesn't flow with the rest of your car.
Love the center-caps!

I think a dark-gunmetal or some sort of off-black may help with your contrasting.
Then you can have the Acura symbol in the center-caps painted white.

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

PRECISELY what I was thinking. No idea when the hell I am going to do this, though, lol

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

Ah, one last thing, footwell lighting has been installed. These are a far more subdued look then most, as I want it to flow well with the rest of the interior.







Last but not least, the yard is coming along nicely, although I am sure that I am going to be raped by my water bill this month. OH, nightscaping is done as well (I've been busy)

Aman

Hmm, actually if I were you I'd redo the rear end instead. Rims look great from every other angle. Maybe redo the taillight masking a different colour than white?

What if you painted the masking black, or another less subtle colour?

Also for a new idea, have you thought about doing something with the mirrors? I don't know if the 07+ TL mirrors came with turn signals, but the 06+ TSX and Accord Hybrid did. I'm sure they could fit with a little bit of modification, and knowing you, you can do something creative with it. Just an idea.

EDIT: Beautiful nightscape, by the way!

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

Woof, that's a boatload of work. Dammit, I'm not going to get a winks worth of sleep tonight.

I've toyed with the idea. I loathe the '07 mirrors, the protruding diffuser destroys the lines of the car...IMHO...we'd have to do something very different...

Thanks, brother! It cost about $140 thanks to some patience on eBay and many hours with the shovel and tamp...well worth it!

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

UPDATE: Sort of...ish...

Taking all of next week off to finish the front end and repaint the wheels.

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Brother, you have been very busy this weekend, I see! I love the interior footwell lighting and the accent lighting on the rear doors. The roof turned out great, plus the house lighting looks good too. Heck, I thought you were done, but I guess not. Your wife seems as though she's a real trooper-she obviously knows that the TL is very important to you and supports you with all you're doing to it.

bzyrice

iTrader: (10)

I love gold wheels on a white car!! I think they look good! I would have like the center cap better if the colors were flipped though.

What kind of stripper did you use? I've stripped and painted a bunch of wheels and never had to take as much time to strip the wheels before. I've never stripped these oem wheels, but I can't imagine the paint not coming off like the other oem wheels I had done. I always used aircraft grade stripper that you can get from autozone or discount auto parts.

So how come u are going to repaint them? Lol

I can't wait to start working on my car again!!

JonBeast

iTrader: (2)

What a great build thread...have you decided what you are going to do with the wheels?

I think your car would look SICK with some sort of white/black wheels to match your theme.

Crestwood1001

Gold wheels on a white car are sick. I think the problem with your wheels is just the shade, try and match the color that VOLK used on the gold rims. Those are sex on a WDP. And i literally said OH MY GOD out loud when I saw the pic of the attempted wheel stripping.

Phambam12

i like the center caps how they are. maybe you should photoshop the wheels to see what the best look would be.

your driveway is amazing at night.

lopopo

I thought the same, gold rims on white is real clean, but doesn't seem to match your theme imo. I would do black rims white lip, saw those on a s5 and a m5.. looks CLEAN, but for that i think you gotta get new rims. But yea just sharing my thoughts! =]

Majofo

Those wheels don't flow with your tips.. I'm not a fan of solid gold wheels either. I think a light primer and duplicolor bronze + polished tips would look better IMO. Your wheels don't look bad but they definitely put it on the style edge of nice / rice.

DeathMetal

iTrader: (2)

[QUOTE = Steven Bell]Brother, you have been very busy this weekend, I see! I love the interior footwell lighting and the accent lighting on the rear doors. The roof turned out great, plus the house lighting looks good too. Heck, I thought you were done, but I guess not. Your wife seems as though she's a real trooper-she obviously knows that the TL is very important to you and supports you with all you're doing to it.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, dude…we’re approaching the finish line, at least for this year. The wife wants to expand the family (yikes!), but I told her that I want to finish the car first, hence the big push right now, haha!
Me too! …just not mine, lol.

PRECISELY what I used…I’m tellin’ ya, this stuff is of the devil’s work.

Just doesn’t flow. Looks great from the side, horrible from the rear. Graphite grey, here we come!

DO IT, your thread is getting dusty and I love the evolution of your whip.

I had considered that as well, although I think that might start making it flow more in to the rice category. 
Yeah, I had an OMG moment when I stripped the first LAYER. What a freaking mess. Like I said, I think gold wheels look amazing on a white car, but with my ass work, it just doesn’t flow.

Thanks! I still have to finish some landscaping of the driveway. The lighting, while aesthetically pleasing, was done more for security then anything (my subs were stolen from my trunk while I slept, it was hella dark prior to)

=]

Don’t get me wrong, I would LOVE new rims, but my fiscal resources are being put to other uses at present.

Your wheels don't look bad but they definitely put it on the style edge of nice / rice.
No doubt, and I’ve been trying like hell to avoid that. MOD FAIL.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Dude, car's looking great. I tend to agree on the bronze wheels...I would think black or white would be MONEY on this car based on the other mods you've done.

dwb993

iTrader: (13)

Here's an idea---use the same metal fleck paint you used on the tail and sidemarkers.

Crestwood1001

There it is! Do that!

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

the work that you do is extraordinary....but (dont get me wrong here) the car looks a little over done from the rear.....i think the tail lights/tips/wheel color doesnt flow as well, atleast as the front does....

the car wouldve looked perfect with black "traditional" rims....but since you went with a bold color i would suggest doing a little something with the tail lights....seems like they going to transform

but the kind of perfection that goes in your job is awesome....the time and the effort get a A+++++

on a side note the interior looks friggin awesome....someday i might drive down to ur place and have all the interior LED's swapped for blue ones

04WDPSeDaN

iTrader: (1)

Good work man, ive been lurking around this thread. I agree with others on the tails looking out of place. I have Gold wheels, black roof on a WDP TL and It flows amazing. It's how you want to picture your ride, if it makes you happy its all that matters.

AckTL05

iTrader: (18)

Pull a BforBRIAN and color match your tail bezels gold along with your side mirrors and it will solve all problems . I honestly don't like gold rims (coming from an STI I choose the silver finish) but it compliments the white. If you do the rims black it will be too much "blacked out", I would change the tails if I were you.