Good luck with the wheel refurb
When i come to paint my new wheels (as i want them a different colour, plus they are used and have some odd bits of damage) i'm going to be leaving the tyres on, just mask around them very carefully.
My idea was to use body filler on the little bits of damage aswell, i figgured this would make them much better than they currently are. Obviously if youve got anything major i'm not sure body filler would be the way to sort it, but on all the small things it should be fine.
Are you going to prime your wheels before you spray them there final colour? I think i'm going to give mine a quick blast when i come to do mine.
Yeah also as above, autoglym do indeed do a good tar-remover, though there are a few tar removers on the market, i'd go take a look in halfords if i were you, they'll probably have something over-priced that will do the job nicely.
Oh and don't forget to post us some pics as you go through it, it'll be interesting to see how your wheels come out, and maybe i'll learn something for when i do mine aswell