How to Polish your rims

[schlol]

Polishing Rims
This is a project that takes time and patience. You will be wet sanding and it makes a mess and your finger nails will be black for a while, the ladies will be impressed. The important thing is to sand long enough with each grit to remove the scratches from the previous grit. If you rush through the grits, you will end up sanding much longer with a finer grit to remove scratches from early grits.

Here's what you need:
-A variety of sand paper, I had
180 grit
240 grit
320 grit
400 grit
600 grit
1000 grit
1200 grit
1500 grit
2000 grit
- Mother's Wheel polish
- Blue Magic Wheel Polish
- any automotive carnuba type paste wax in a can




Here is of lightweight rims from a civic hx. As you can see they are badly corroded. They are painted silver from the factory, but had already had most of the paint stripped before I bought the car.



I began with 180 grit on these because there was so much corrosion to sand through. I sanded so much that I probably made them even lighter lol, yet still could not get through all the corrosion on the lips. You could start with 240 on a cleaner set of rims. You want to sand all the lines out of the factory machined surface.



Some pics after sanding with 400 grit



After 600 grit



After 1000 grit


Be sure to clean the inside of the rims as well so you can have the stick on weights put there rather than on the outside of the rim you just polished. I just used 180 grit to get the dirt off.




On the first wheel, between 1000 and 1200 grit, I masked off all the inset areas between the spokes to be painted. I did this before the 1200, 1500 and 2000 so that the rough edges from the masking tape would be sanded smooth as I finished the surface.






I sprayed them with Duplicolor Wheel Coating, Graphite





These are after sanding with 1500 grit. The rim in the background is 180 grit to show how far it has progressed.





after 2000 grit... almost done!!



Mothers wheel polish is good stuff, I have been using it for almost 10 yrs.
Just dab some on a terry cloth you dont use for anything nice (it turns black) and rub it on a section of the rim for about 30 seconds. Let it haze over for a minute after wiping and wipe the haze off with a clean cloth.


Done! (with that little area)



Spoke before Mothers


Spoke after Mothers



Half polished


Complete!



Compared to the 180 grit rim



Now I have 3 more to do

Also not yet pictured, I find that waxing them with a wheel polish called Blue Magic will make them a little bit brighter. Mothers is an abrasive, but the Blue Magic is much finer. It removes what is left of the black oxidation from the Mothers.

Finally wax them with a coat of regular carnuba paste wax. This will act like a seal on the surface and keep them looking good after a rainstorm. On the inside, wax but do not wipe it off after it hazes. This will make it much easier to keep the insides of the rims clean in the future. They aren't clear coated, but I hope you wouldn't even think about using them in the winter anyways!

[tom6433]

wow, how long did it take you to do one wheel from start to finish?

[schlol]

I worked on it a little bit at a time, but I'd guess maybe 8-10 hrs or a little less. That was the worst rim out of the set, the less are corroded less and should go faster.

[dasmopar]

Thats amazing man!!

Very nice write up and pics. I almost wanna try it on a set of wheels for a winter project.

The finished wheel looks great!!!

[dasmopar]

If my wife saw our bath tub like that she would have me arrested for sure.

[AndySRT]

damn thats amazing. maybe one of these days i can get around to doing that on my old pizza wheels from my 87 charger so I can sell them.

[dasmopar]

I'm really half tempted to go get 2 wheels from my car and see what I can do. Did youdo that all by hand? Or did you use a sander at all?

[orgsrt4]

thats some nice work

[04yellowsrt]

damn... this inspired me to try that with my jeep wheels.... he's not lying about the 8-10 hrs.... i thought i'd be smart and try to use my DA on one, but i caught one of the holes with it and took a chunk out of the pad... oops. so then i started again by hand with 80 grit, and it looks like i barely took a chunk out of one wheel

[04yellowsrt]

im thinking im gonna try sandblasting it tomorrow to see how that does

[schlol]

did it all by hand. in some of the crevaces and lip edges, your finger is the only shape that will sand the area completely. on the face of the spokes I used a sanding block since they are flat, and then my finget for the areas where the block was too big to fit. I used the block for the very outer edge of the lip too where it is flat.

watch out using 80 grit, thats rough!

[schlol]

if you want to polish, don't sand blast. it will only create a rougher surface that you will need to sand more. if you are gonna paint the rim then you can sandblast though.

[HLFVIPR]

You better clear coat the polished wheels or they will start to oxidize.....or you can jsut put mothers on them every now and then

[04yellowsrt]

Originally Posted by HLFVIPR

You better clear coat the polished wheels or they will start to oxidize.....or you can jsut put mothers on them every now and then

that's what i was gonna do with mine, and the 80 grit was only one wheel whih was really oxidized, and i only did it on those parts... my problem is having the patience to sand all the remaining clearcoat off of the wheels.

[04yellowsrt]

did you wet sand them at all?

[IH8MYWRX]

I thought I had some time in painting the wheels. Very nice!

[blue flame]

I've heard that plain ole flour, polishes aluminum like chrome. I was going to try it on my stuff. They say you buff it in dry, no water.

[dasmopar]

I'm sending myth busters a email on this one Mark.

[blue flame]

Originally Posted by dasmopar

I'm sending myth busters a email on this one Mark.

I tried the flour test. It works, but not as good as Mothers.