My '96 has the factory aluminum wheels, and the front wheels are looking a little dull. Does anyone know if the wheels are clear coated ? Or can I polish them with an aluminum polish with out ruining them ?

 

I think they are clear coated because I have the same year truck and mine are peeling.

 

there clearcoated.

ive redone mine with

evercoat 3000grit buffing compound
then the swirl mark remover
and the finish wax and that really brightened them up.

i want to take the clearcoat off my other set of wheels and have them polished and recoated. down here it was gonna run me about $200 to get that done.

 

thats a smokin deal. what kind of place did you go to to get that quote?



all you guys with dull alcoas send em my way. ill take em for free.

 

theres a local polish shop that does it. they just dip them, polish, coat. they can do a set of our wheels in about 2 hours plus the 8 hour cure time on the coating.

something else you can do is use aircraft stripper take the clear coat off hand polish them then just keep a good coat of wax on them.

 

If you don't care whether they are clear coated or not, there's another option. When I bought my dually with the factory alloys on it, the jackazz that had it before me put the fronts on the rear which rock dinged the crap out of them. I set out to smooth them back out. I used a DA sander (dual action orbital sander) with 220 grit to start with. That blew through the clear coat like nothing. And the flaps of paper that overlapped the disk pad made short work of the contours like the rim edge where the weights ride. Once I got the clear coat off I went with finer and finer grits to get rid of the swirl marks (mostly) Then just polished them like I would an un coated wheel and they came out great. The only reason I started with such a harsh grit is because I had to get rid of rock dings. Anyway, thats just my 2 cents.

 

got any pics. sounds like something i may try. i got a da. did you spray clear coat on them when you were done or did you leave them un coated and just polish them everytime you wash. thanks for the info.

 

I have redone some set of wheels never our alcoas before and have had great luck with the expensive zoops seal but I think for the money POR makes a clearcoat for Aluminum at it has last one year on another truck of mine and held up well. You have to make sure you get the all of the polishing compound out of the wheels before you clear them or will get bad fish eyes and peeling.

 

97, I don't have any close ups. You can see them in my gallery. I didn't recoat them, I just polish them every now and then. If I polished them every time I washed my truck there wouldn't be any wheel left. I wash my truck at least once a week. I can't stand having a dirty truck, inside or out. My mud racer is the truck I get dirty in.

 

thats the first time i have seen your trucks. very nice. ford should of made your style psd available in a 4x4 also that would of made a sweet setup. very nice tho.


and your mud truck well i need one.

 

Thank you for the compliments, I try to make Ford proud whenever I can. They did make my style psd in 4x4. I passed one up for 14k last year. It was 97 with 80k miles on it. I almost cried. Yeah, a single cab 4x4 dually with a psd..........I dream about them. I'll have one some day when my triplet boys are grown, or I'm too old to enjoy it. But I'm hopefull. As for the mud truck, that's a real life dream come true. When I was growing up, my sister had a long time boyfriend that always had huge Fords in that body style running on 44's. Being influenced by that I always wanted a truck like his but Badder. And that's it. Every little part I always wanted on a truck is on that truck. From the blower, to the liquid filled gauges. And it get run about twice a year if it's lucky. Of course my boys came along about the time I finished it. But once they get old enough to realize what it is and how much fun can be had with it, I'm sure it will get beat on a regular basis. But anyway, thanks again for the props. And for what it's worth, I'm still jealous of your injectors, not to mention you have a really nice truck as well.