so the wheels on my truck are getting pretty nasty looking, the clear coat has come off in spots and im getting some corrosion on them.

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I know that ill have to sand them down real good and get some good polish and then a new clear coat.

i dont know to much about this kind of stuff. any advice on the best way to go about this? I am not exactly sure how coarse of a sandpaper i should start with but i will finish with a 800 grit.

any input would be appreciated!

 

the best thing I have found for breaking the clearcoat off is a http://compare.ebay.com/like/321073201011?_lwgsi=y&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar.

It will take you down to bare aluminum ( it will look like hell when you are done with the rust wheel)then you can start smoothing things out with a black and decker mouse and 120 grit working your way up to 800.

If you get the wheel up on a bench or stand and get comfortable with a good seated or standing position things will be a lot less painful at the end of the day.

Then you will need a high speed buffer and some jewlers rouge and for finish I like to use CAM or mothers aluminum polish

 

thank you for listing the compounds and links! that jewlers rouge, is there an alternative that would do the same thing but doesnt cost $45? if thats the only thing that will do the job then thats fine but if theres something a little cheaper that would be cool.

 

I used a stripper and some hd aluminum polish on mine several years ago, it took a couple of times to get all the clear coat off, I used a brillo pad to scrub them as well, then did the polish about 6 times, I've hardly touched then since and the still look great.
I think 80 grit paper is too course.

 

There are places that will do it for you, if you would like.

Such as Wheel Polishing Before and After Photos and others I would assume.

 

thanks for the input guys! ill sand and polish myself, dont think I could screw it up to much lol

 

Use a good paint stripper and some steel wool pads.

After you strip your clear coat. Wet sand the wheel. If its really bad start with 400 grit. Work your way up to 1200 grit.

Finish with your favorite polish.

 

what would be the difference between the wet sanding and dry sanding? and can i wet sand with an electric sander?

 

Wet sanding is cleaner.

You might get a charge out of your electric sander.

Hand sanding is easy. give it a shot.

 

alright thank your for your input! i will try hand sanding, im used to using some good old elbow grease! used it on my ball joints last weekend haha

 

I like this stuff even better than Mothers polish! It has a soft wadd application media similar to Nevr Dull in the can but 10x better...
Xtreem Metal Polish

 

I'll def. look into it, theres so many choices with this polish stuff!

 

I would try without sanding first. If you sand you are just going to create more work for yourself. I would definitely use an aluminum safe chemical stripper for the clear coat. These are a set of Weld wheels I did on my old truck. They are not clear coated. My polishing method was: 1. Clean the wheel 2. Polish with NeverDull wadding polish 3. Polish with Mother's Aluminum Polish 4. Polish with Mother's Billet Polish. I think they turned out great. The damage to the wheels was caused by whatever they spray on the roads in Colorado that sat on the wheels for quite a while. I don't really have a good after of the wheels, but the second picture shows they were like a mirror. No sanding involved. Sanding, IMO, is only to flatten the metal when polishing. If the surface has become pitted you may have to sand.

 

There are some good videos on youtube about polishing aluminum wheels. I think 89LX above is right, you may not have to do any real sanding, just polishing, and I think it can be done by hand.

I came across a set of 3 piece OZ Racing wheels recently and almost broke them down and refinished them, so I looked into all this, but ended up selling them as-is for $$$$$

 

yeah im going to strip the clear coat and try polishing one if it looks good to me then ill probably just go with that but i may just try sanding, if i dont see the results i want with just the polish, as ive seen most people do on youtube.