White wall porta walls and white wall paint

I bought new tires mom wondering how good the porta walls work and how good is the paint.

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Probably should have bought WWW's. I've never seen a fake white wall, that didn't look fake.

 

There are those who swear by portawalls but they flap when you drive down the road which looks like crap AND make civilians think your tires are coming apart.

There are those who swear by the whitewall paint but it takes a lot of careful prep and doesn't last all that long. Every painted tire I ever saw looked good in photos but not in real life.

I finally broke down and spent real money on wide whitewalls for my '53 Chevy last year and the difference was night and day. As Pinhead said in that horror flick from the '80s whose name I can't remember, "I can't believe I even hesitated!"

 

If you go the paint route, I've been told the white wall pait for tires is just re-packaged white roofing paint. You think about it, a guy on eBay selling his own label of white wall paint out of his house, where's he getting it, he sure is hell isn't making it.

I've heard of people using Ames Snow Seal, or any other comperable elsto brand roofing paint, with success.

 

Yes. The kind I use is called Seal-Best white elastomeric roof coating, same shit. Half a gallon for $11 The shit you buy online is just that, put in a can and charging you 10x more.

It takes a lot of time to make convincing whitewalls with snow seal, you'll want to use an 80 grit DA pad and take all the lettering off of the sides first, so you have a smooth surface, then you need to clean them really good with lacquer thinner to get rid of all the brown mold-release oil, then 4 or 5 coats for coverage.

I've done it on several cars and I was plenty happy with the results vs spending $1000 on new tires, but I've seen a lot of sloppy jobs where people got impatient and it ended up looking like shit.

It's not as good as the real thing, but it's a good low-budget option if you take your time.

Portawalls are dogshit, they're not made for radial tires, they'll dig a groove into your sidewall and they'll fly off after about 1000 miles, sometimes damaging your paint. Don't even bother.

 

When I was a kid in the 50's if your ol man had porta walls everybody knew you were doomed..

 

My bud put them on his channeled '30 'A' Coupe we built over a summer...(we were 15)
His were the thicker ones, with a ridge on the outer circumference. (16" steel wheels)
They never did come quite white, sort of a 'beige'...but when we gave the Coupe 2 coats of black synthetic enamel, (New in '57!) the porta walls looked great!

Then he squashed & ripped one on a curb at Santa Clara High...Left the car parked there, went to class.
After school, the Drivers Ed Nazi (Mr. Frank Wright) thought the 'parked hot rod' had a slashed tire. So, he called the police...Motorcycle patrolman was dispatched to the scene...
Good thing the cop was a rodder ('36 Ford Roadster pilot!) as he knew it was a Port a Wall!
The Coupe ran around with that ripped Port a Wall for a month...Took that long to conjure up a broken set...Bill Seagal to the rescue, Urzi's Chrome and Custom parts, San Jose!

How do I remember this shat???

 

There's always this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnwevOfIUqA

I'd like to at least give it a try, maybe use a bit of the white roof paint to touch things up afterwards.

 

I've been searching all week on different forums and I've found roof paint, krylon fusion to paint tires to be white wall. What other paints work good?

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I had porta walls on the 29. I ran them for the 2 seasons I drove it. They didn't flap or come apart , they seemed like decent quality and quite stiff , the problem I had was that the oils from the tires bled through and looked like hell. Took them off 2 times and painted both sides with krylon plastic paint-that worked for about a month. My next wide whites will be factory whites.

 

i've ran portawalls for years - gotta know how to use them - tires have to be at least 2-3" wider than the rims to keep the portawalls firmly against the tires - after mounting them, let all air out of the tires & take a rubber hammer & drive them into the wheel bead until fully seated, then air the tires back up - any bleed thru from the tires can be washed off with acetone (needs to be done occasionally)

 

I had port a walls on my 41 Chrysler with 600 x 16 tires for years. They fit tight and didn't flop.

 

The newer the tires, the worse any paint will work on them. Gotta let them dry/gas out for some time.

 

Tried all of those things and finally decided clean black walls just don't look so bad.
Except on Cadillacs.

 

Johnny Freakin Spamathon (tm)

Did your search, uh, not a thing related to this thread.

Enlighten

 

I had a set of porta walls that fit the tire nicely, but had to carry a rubber mallet to beat them back in every now and again because they walk out when driving above 80 as I recall.