I have been looking around at other K's and noticed that many people have painted their wheels, engine, forks, etc. As I am no painter I was wondering what exactly do I need to do in order to paint my wheels and parts of my engine. What type of paint is used? Do I need a paint booth? How do I remove the wheels and valve covers? Any advice would be appreciated.

Neither am I but got some reasonable results with rattle cans if you prepare carefully.
The back wheel comes out when you undo the bolts behind the plastic cover in the wheel centre. Easy.
The front is a bit more involved. Download the manual from the forum. Its not too difficult, though.
All part of the hardening process! That's you, not the bike.
Remove the front discs, tape up the holes where the axle goes and give them a good scrub with a pot scourer that contains soap. I used Brillo pads. Rinse the soap off after you are finished. This removes all the crud and loose paint. If you were loosing air pressure over time you will find repainting them cures it.
I put a brush shaft through both wheels and supported it between two stepladders.
Used Hammerite aluminium primer and then Hammerite Smooth Silver. Because it hardens chemically, you don't need a lot of heat. I did mine outside and it wasn't a warm day.
The finish was acceptable and durable. My only regret was that I didn't try to coat them with a smooth lacquer as they were satin finish and slightly harder to keep clean than the original paint.
Don't forget to cut the old valves out and replace them after painting. 
For engine casings I used Hammerite Satin Black. Again, take your time with the prep work. Its worth it.

If you want to paint the old way use a brush. No need for a strip down ---just a rub down. Use an International Yacht Enamel of the colour you want add 10% International ORIGINAL Yacht  varnish and stir well.{best to use a separate container for the mix} A true depth of colour will be obtained with the use of a base coat of the colour first.  When the top coat goes on you will see the gloss varnish rising to the surface,this also retards the paint setting time and gives you more time to lightly brush out. 24 hrs to hardness in normal conditions . Nice soft small brush Preferably used so the square ends are worn fine. Used this method for vintage tractors--- won prizes people think they have been sprayed with many coats and its a very hard finish that only needs cleaning with warm soapy water.----Just a thought for you, Gordon:D

Don't try lacquering Hammerite unless you can find an enamel lacquer. Most non-enamel lacquers will just give you a crackle finish if applied over enamel. Hammerite used to sell a lacquer but it was never popular because it wasn't really clear.

Painting with aerosol cans can give good results. The problem is that you need some practice. Most people go wrong by not doing enough preparation and by trying to get too much paint on too quickly.

Apart from the Dakar Yellow body panels, every other painted component on this bike was painted with cans, even the wheels with the bare metal highlights all masked off.



Preparation is everything. If you make a bog-up of the paint you can flat it down and do it again easily enough but if the prep is crap, that's what the finish will be - crap.

I've detailed the work done on the K75S (above) elsewhere on the forum in the restoration section. You may get some ideas from that and the excellent work of others in that section.

Don't be afraid of giving it a go. Few of us have done anything except learn by trial and error.

One of the best painting references on the Web:

Rattle Can Bling