What's the best way to black out white walls. I have a new set of tires that I bought for another car and they were to small. I would like to use them on my model a in the front no fenders
Funny that this came up. I was at a local hot rod shop this past Saturday and we were talking about the possibility of me turning my BFG Silvertown radial WWW's around and painting them black because the WWW's have completely split cracked and discolored. They're getting old but have never seen more than a few hours of sun and the tires themselves look perfect and have less than 5K on them. Both me and the guy who runs the shop vaguely remember old DuPont "7" tire paint. I had some as a kid but haven't seen it in years. IIRC, it worked great. A Google turned up some pictures of the old cans. But I didn't seem to find out if it's still around.
Did some more checking and like all stuff that used to work good and be available everywhere, DuPont "7" Black Tire Paint is no longer with us. I need to say thanks to guys who posted on other forums who have done the legwork to search for this stuff. I did however, find out that KIWI black leather dye, which is still available works great on rubber. According to the interwebs, Wally's has it.
I would say you are lucky you have not found the Dupont # 7 . Its still available. Radir tire blacked out some white wall slicks for me and that's what they said they used. The paint weather checked horribly before I got them mounted. I would like to try the KIWI black leather dye you mention.
.......................................If you re-read his post, I think that's what he plans to do. He just wants to black out the WWW even after it's mounted inside so as not to be visible on an open fendered car.
I agree with cheap flat black, when it starts to fade, just hit with another coat. Easy on fenderless car. With fenders nobody can see anyway, unless you crawl under the thing.
Go to any craft store and buy some acrylic black paint,acrylics unlike most spray bombs are oil base,the acrylics will expand and contract and will be less likely to crack and flake off. HRP
I've used plain old Krylon Semi-Flat Black for a hundred years for this purpose and it works great and lasts a long time. Just wash the sidewall well - I used Comet Cleanser and a scrub brush - let it dry and spray away! Not rocket science.
Krylon makes a paint for rubber and plastic that works to spray whitewalls on black walls so I am sure if you bought it in black it would work the other way. Funny thing but it was common to see white walls turned in on cars when I was a kid and whitewalls were starting to loose their popularity, even open wheel cars.
I'd go to the Bandag recap shop (think big truck tire recap) and get some tire black from them. I used to get it from them when my buddy worked there for this very purpose. Larry
In my application, I'm turning them around on a fendered rod, just don't want to see any white under there. I guess I kinda steered the thread toward products that were specific to blackening tires. Once all the alternatives started being mentioned, it looks like there may be a lot of options to do this. Now I'm even thinking of trying SEM color coat!
If the rubber is cracking replace the tires. They'll come apart I assure you. I replace my tires every 6 or 7 years to be safe. Why tear up your car or risk your life.
Let's not make this thread go there. There's nothing wrong with the tires, The whitewall, which for any tire is bonded into the sidewall when the tire is manufactured and then ground to expose it, is cracking. That's not an indication of tire failure, it's an indication of whitewall failure. And to make matters worse, they're BFG Silvertowns from Coker and they're not square, balanced fine and ride well. As far as when to ditch an old tire, I think Hank Williams Sr. put it best when he sang "My tires 'n tubes 'r doin fine, but the air is showin through!"
I don't know what kind of tires the OP has but new tires have to mounted one way only. That's why one can't rotate the tires cross wise. But I remember when tires could be mounted "black walls out"
The birthday has nothing to do with the tires condition ... It has to do with the elements it was subjected to!
Modern radial tires with a non directional tread can indeed be cross rotated. I would hazard a guess that on any given day in this country, there are literally tens of thousands of 2nd hand tires sold and mounted. Unfortunately, I bought most of 'em! Do you think ANY of them have information supplied as to their previous location on the car they came from? There are some tires that specify which side of the tire mounts out but I don't recall seeing any specific cautions on reversing the rotational direction. Years ago, they were prone to belt separations by doing this but it's very rare these days. In the case of my tires, I simply need to note the original location on the vehicle and be sure to mount the tire so that it will still be rotating in the same direction when re mounted for example, the left front with the whitewall out becomes the right front with the whitewall in and the rotation remains the same.
I don't about tire separation being a rare occurrence now days because there are quite a complaints here on the HAMB about thread separation. As a matter of fact, it happen to me. The car rolled over numerous times. Me and my son were injured but it was all due to the tire being mounted backwards. Here is a new HAMB post on tire separation. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/radial-tire-belt-seperation.977927/#post-11015412
I was going to say, after more than a decade of seeing posts about painting sidewalls white, shaving white letter walls to expose the white and who knows how many cheap ass ways to get white walls, this guy wants to hide them! Made my day.
Look I like white walls I have a set of bias ply tires I bought from Coker for my dodge. The tires were to small they have about 10 miles on them to sell then I would loose my ass, so I thought the hamb members would know the best way to cover the white wall. Thanks for all the responses
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