Wheels

I recently purchased a set of early '90's Limited wheels- the gold lace centers with bright rims. I would like to refinish the gold part, possibly a charcoal color. I realize that I must remove some sort of clearcoat protective finish, but has anyone ever attempted this. I know how to ruin it (!), but to completely remove it and not damage the wheel? Also, the wheels will have to be re-coated in order to protect them from tarnish. Thanks for any ideas.

i've got the same wheels on my 91 and all i did to paint the centers was use my portable sandblaster (after i taped off the polished rim w/ duct tape) gave it a quick blast to clean them up and sprayed them with gloss black rustoleum.came out looking really good and gave me an excuse to use one of my rarely used tools.

Ditto, except I used Satin Black

I would not sandblast aluminum rims.

Just use Aircraft Stripper (from Auto Zone or Pep Boys) to get down to the bare aluminum without damaging the surface. You don't need clearcoat if you paint the center portion, but if you leave the rims as polished amluminum, you will have to clearcoat them unless you like to polish the wheels every week or two.

I take the wheels and the Aircraft Stripper to a car wash. That gives me a good high pressure spary to wash of the stripper. You can use a power washer at home, but the stuff is acidic and I don't want the chemicals to contaminate my well.

I just did a set of rims, stripped them down to aluminum, sanded them and had them powder coated silver. Looks good, but there sure is a lot of crevices and corners to clean by hand. Took many applications of stripper and some scrubbing with an assortment of wire and brass brushes to get it all.
If the clear coat is in good shape and not separating and/or has cancer working under the clear coat, you can lightly sand the clear coat and put a coat of paint right on top, no reason why not.
If you use a stripper, really wash them well when your done, aluminum is porous and some of the stripper might stay in the pores. I have a coupe of small flaws in mine, that are probably due to not washing them one more time, with a mild soap and hot water, before the acid dip prior to the powder coat.
If I ever do it again, I´m gonna find some kind of mild acid and/or pickling solution to treat the rims before sending them in for powder coat. The uncleaned areas (left over clear coat) will probably show up well, when the rim is pickled a light mat grey.
Cleaning the stripper, all the way off, is probably the most important part.