Hey Aaron-71, nice looking truck ! I am following your build thread, I also have a 1979 F250 4x4. If you are interested I have a new 4 barrel carb and some other smaller parts. I actually bought a pickup load of parts from a guy in Hamilton a while back, it's mostly '70s and '80s pickup parts.

 

Thanks Rob! I'll send you a PM with some stuff I'm looking for



Progress from the weekend. My hands hurt from scrubbing!

Spent most of my weekend polishing... and awaiting Spring as well.

So far it's taken about 5 hours per rim. Wash, light polish with Mothers Mag & Aluminium, cut & colour polish with black jewelers rouge.

But first! I purchased a used Thrush muffler to 'get me by' with the local authorities for being street legal I was told Thrush are pretty loud, so I might swap this out for Flowmaster 44's in the future. This muffler will be red-necked up to the existing exhaust in the in-term.



Next, I hit up my aluminium intake with some engine degreaser. Used a brush this time and she came out nice. Got rid of all that black crud on the back/front.



Back to the rims... Up close - all that white 'rust' and water spotting... Courtesy of the last owner



Applied a little white magic in the process.



Comparison shot. Left - polished with mothers, then hit with black rouge. About 4 hours total in polishing (more to come). Right - washed only. No mothers applied yet.



Action shot of mothers polish applied and a closer view of the polished rim.



On another note, I went against what I said in a previous post. I tried starting my truck this weekend because it was around 0 all weekend long and I needed to hear it run

Didn't get too far. Poured some fuel down the carb, she rolled over a few times but didn't actually run for more than 5 seconds.

I'll have to rotate the engine a bit because the flywheel has a couple missing teeth and the bendix gear is sitting in one of those empty tooth holes. The starter gave out a nice whine on my last attempt to start the truck up.

Note to self - hunt down a 180 tooth flywheel (without missing teeth), get it resurfaced, install it, drink a beer.

That's all for now.

 

I feel you on the missing teeth. When i first got my truck i had to find the magic spot every time i wanted it to start. I feel for those guys who used to have to crank start their cars....

 

Mother's mag and aluminum polish is definitely "white magic" .

Been using that stuff for longer than I can remember. Never a disappointment.

 

How does that even happen? I mean really... I can't imagine the immense pressure you would need to snap a tooth off a flywheel.

Yeah, I'm with you on the cranking! I'm considering getting a swing handle and a 15/16 socket, dedicated/stored in the truck until I have time to swap out the flywheel for a new one.

Glad to hear it. They cleaned up the rims fairly well, but black rouge seemed to work a lot better to be honest.

There were some really nasty black spots (almost looked like liquid asphalt) on the 3rd rim I polished. Mothers didn't seem to want to take it out for some reason.

Black rouge took care of it, but definitely left some light scratching behind.

Future polishing will go: Brown Rouge, then White Rouge. Then I'll probably hit it with Mothers again just to give it a bit of a coating/surface.



Anyone have recommendations for a finishing coating/polish to keep my rims polished/clean?

I've heard good things about a few products in the US, but I can't get that kinda stuff up here. Border regulations and all that :/

 

i would just get a spray wax and hit them after ever wash.

 

Black rouge first, the green rouge. That's it. Clear coat rattle can, maybe.

 

Never tried a spray wax before. Any recommendations?

Black rouge (almost complete), green rouge though? Never seen the stuff yet.

My kit came with black, brown, white, and red. Not that I don't want to take your advice, I just didn't get a green bar so now you've got me curious. According to the little chart that came in the Rouge box, it said to use them in this order:

Black, Brown, White, done.

Any idea where green would fit into that combination? I'm curious what grit it is in comparison to the ones in my kit. Black is considered "cut and colour", brown is more along the lines of "polish" (like mothers but weaker), and white is supposed to be purely for shine - so like an even weaker version of mothers/brown.


The rattle can of clear coat is an interesting idea. Someone at the office mentioned clear coating the rims as well.

I wish I had the capacity to spray clear from a gun... haven't hit that stage in my build yet to warrant those tools tho :P

 

All of my information is from my own trial and error. Like I said before, I have polished a set of HD heads. It took me more than a couple of days to get it right. I tried the Mothers Aluminum polish , it's a great product but wasn't giving me the shine I wanted. Then i tried Mother's Billet Metal Polish, a little better but wasn't there yet. Then I went to Sears and got a metal polishing kit with four rouges and two 4" buffing wheels (one medium and one firm). Ordered the green rouge from Amazon.

This is the best pic I can find of my HD head.


This is just a scrap piece of aluminum I had laying on the garage.
Before:


And this is after I hit it with the firm wheel with the black rouge and then again with green rouge on the medium wheel.




If I lap it one more time with the green, it will look a little better. I used a lent free rag to lightly wipe off any residue. Just some food for thought. I really enjoy polishing metal this way much better than cramping my fingers with other polishes. From what I have read, the lighter buffing wheels are more for polishing plastics and other softer, nonmetal material. You can get a smaller piece of the green rouge on ebay if you want to try it before buying a larger block of it. This kind of polishing can get addictive. You will be polishing all of the trim on your truck this way. Trust me.

 

Really great info Slik!

Thanks for the write-up

Between my last post and now I did some more reading on green rouge. Apparently it's even softer than white rouge and provides a WAY better lustre/shine than the white stuff. Works on any metal too!

I've gotta grab some in the next couple of days for my build/rims.

You're right about polishing the trim. I'm already getting more ideas for where I could use the stuff

Now a question of results... You mentioned before to simply apply the green rouge and then leave it alone?

Have you had good results with just washing/general cleaning once you've applied green rouge? I've read all sorts of threads on guys wanting to protect their hard work - so it's got me thinking the same thing (do it right - do it once).

Can you comment a bit further on what you've done to keep the shiny bits shiny once you've put in all that effort?

 

Well, I never finished the HD project and sold it as a rolling chassis. So I have no idea about the polished heads because I never put any protection on them. I actually figured it would have just burned off anyway. As for the trim on my truck, all that I have polished is the front grill and didn't protect that either. I polished that back in late summer and I have been driving my truck all winter long. Now it's not as shiny as 6 months ago but it's not bad as of now with all the harsh road crud from the CT roads and highways. I am slowly buying everything I need to repaint my truck now and when I strip it all down, I will repolish all the trim. I still need to research if I spray the polished aluminum with clear, will it stick. Like I said, I mostly learn from trial and error.

 

No worries! Still good info - thanks for the input

The more reading I do online, the more I think it's simply a maintenance thing with polishing aluminium.

Many threads I've read now have users who don't seal/coat their aluminium in anything after a good polish job. They simply keep it clean and don't let crud sit on there for months at a time.

Maybe that's all that needs to be done? A bit of mother's polish once in a while wouldn't hurt once it's polished super shiny like your HD project.

 

If you don't cc them you'll have to stay on top of them with polish. Ask any trucker with shiny rims lol

 

Azol Nobel urethane clear coat, Wheel Guard Max Coat Rim & Wheel Sealant, and Shine Seal are the three protective products that seems everyone uses. Something kind of scares me about using a clear coat over polished anything, because you are applying a coat over something you are trying to have so smooth that it has a mirror finish with a compound on it. It doesn't make sense to me but then again I haven't tried it. Shine Seal and Wheel Guard sounds more promising. I think it's more like a Carnauba wax for polished metals. I think I will be trying one of these first, probably this summer. If I'm not satisfied, I can always try the clear coat next.

 

Shine seal looks quite promising, and I've heard really good things about it online... but a really good write-up from an independent source has yet to surface. I also read somewhere that the original product (named something else) went under with the original company, and then the owner of now called "Shine Seal" released his shine seal product a couple of years later. Makes me wonder what actually happened behind the scenes.

Anywho, I'm tempted to give a few different products a try. Protecting with something has to be better than nothing at all.

I got a lead on some 285/75/R16 Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs today, so I'm hopeful to have some new rubber for my truck fairly soon here

Which really translates to... I need to finish polishing/dealing with these Ion rims!!!

Thanks for all the input fellas!


FYI, I just put in a parts order to complete a couple of upgrades to the truck.

A list of the parts:

2x Dorman 611153 - lug nuts (trying for fitment only at this point)
1x SPECTRA PREMIUM/COOLING DEPOT SP1057MP - New Fuel Pump
1x ÜRO PARTS 61311378073 - 99/91 BMW Dual temp switch
1x 80 amp relay
1x GATES 43041 - New Ford 400 water pump
4x DORMAN 42186 - Headlight Adjusting Screw
8x AUTOLITE AP25 - Spark Plugs
1x
1x
6x National Parts Depot 21952-2BB - Door/Tailgate BUSHING, LOCK ROD
1x National Parts Depot 3517-3A - BEARING ASSY, STEERING (Upper steering column bearing)
1x National Parts Depot F-7228-7 - Automatic Trans, Tilt Wheel Shift Column Gear Selector Collar
1x Ford 3G 10mm-13mm Dual V-groove Alternator Pulley

Few upgrades/rebuilds on the rise with my build.

1) Headlight Relay Harness
2) Complete my 3G upgrade (install an in-line fuse)
3) Mark VIII Electric Fan Upgrade + BMW 99/91 Dual Temp Switch
4) Replace Water Pump
5) Replace Fuel Pump + Install Gasket
6) Rebuild Tilt Column + Install in truck

I'm also continuing to look for a dual return power steering pump from a 99-03 Superduty to start my Hydroboost upgrade. Also need a power steering cooler though, so this is on the back-burner for a month or so.

More progress to come!