anything special needed here?
the bike im gonna be painting is an SP with the magnesium rims
any special paint recomended or powdercoating...

not sure what the best prep method would be since the rims are magnesium.

are there any paint removers / chemicals i should avoid to strip the current paint...

or should i sandblast or soda blast or....?
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Koren
2 Strokes and I'm Off

I wouldnt powder coat mag wheels. You cant see any cracks if they develop under the powder coating. Paint them using the least number of coat you can this way you can see hair line cracks in the paint where the wheels are starting to break. lol I kid you not!

I know magteks dont have that much mag content in them but i still perfer paint. Ive had 2 dymags crack on me and both times its been the paint thats given it away.

If you really want to powder coat them then take them somewhere that can x-ray them or use a crack detecting sprays before they are sent off and recheck them every year or so. Having them bead blasted also makes it harder to crack detect.

Hope that helps
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If I have to take the carbs off once more...

Funny this question should come up, I'm in the middle of renovating my mc21sp and spent a fair amount of time looking at the best option to finish the magtek wheels. Just finished them today. This is what i decided after alot of investigation. As stephenrc45 says powder coat is not the way to go. Paint is the way and this is the process
1. Orbital Sander to clean off as much of the old finish as possible.
NOTE: DO NOT USE ANY CHEMICALS TO STRIP THEM.
2.Hard work but worth it, by hand to take of the rest.
3.Once you have them looking something like back to bare use glass etch to a finish.
4.Four coats of base primer flatten out between each this will highlight any cracks.
5.Two topcoat color of choice.
6.Two coats lacquer.
Finish is awesome
Hope this is of help

like martyn says, your first coat of primer must be etch primer,its used as the first coat on all metal then use normal auto primer.

From what I understood from a metal finisher I met was that you DO NOT use a self-etching primer on Mag. Self etching primer has chemicals in it that will eat magnesium.
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Paul Herr
'88 FZR4/GSXR/YZF Frankenbike
MY BIKE PICS

I think you now get etch primer that is designed for use with magnesium. You have to be carful tho as ive also seen paint blister quite badly on my wheels when they havnt been prep'ed quite right. You dnt wnat to go thought all this effort only to find in 2 weeks the paint starts to fall off!
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If I have to take the carbs off once more...