Gearhead Jim

After looking at the grunge that gets in the barrels on mine, I'd use a semi-gloss or matte, dark gray.

zipduda

painted mine flat black and looks great!

Dknight

I have 1400 miles on my 2011 same thing but not as bad

Dave

RO55

I use Daytona Speedmaster wheel brush evertime I wash my car. Easy to clean all around inside wheels with soap & water before brake dust takes it's toll. For $25-$39 it's cheap insurance and they last years!

victorf

For now, that is the best, without a doubt!

I Rejex'ed my Gumbies, my vette is strictly for fair weather and after each drive between wash, I put an old cotton sox over the Daytona, lightly sprayed the sox with detail spray and run it into the rear barrel to remove whatever dust accumulated there. Change to cleaned sox for each wheel, literally takes minutes for the process.

I hope I don't come across as a know all, all the photos on this thread shows wheels that have been neglected, they shown corrosion on base metal, after penetration through top coat. Pictured corrosions needs to be completely removed and resurfaced. If it is simply covered with paint, corrosion on base metal will continue and it will be more involved to restore down the line.

In addition, brake dust is extremely corrosive and red hot when it is shredded off the brake pads and lands on the wheel barrel, whether it is clear coated or whatever. The bottom line is, an ounce of prevention will prevent your wheel barrels turned into those that is pictured in this thread.

JKbride

Do you guys have some close up pics of your painted barrels?

jack5hd

[URL="http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-corvette-general-discussion/2690904-diy-paint-removal-from-wheel-barrels-on-chrome-gumbys.html"

JKbride

Thanks Jack for the pic and link....looks lke painting the barrel's will look better than what I have now....even know now how to remove the paint if I don't like it

John

Gearhead Jim

For the "brake dust is corrosive" issue:

I'm not big on washing my Corvette, and don't wax it very often. Too busy driving it, we put on 15k-20k miles per year. I have never put any wax, Rejex, Zaino, etc on my wheels. They often go for several weeks or more between washings, and I only wipe off all the brake dust while washing, two or three times per year. I do use the stock GM pads, which are Z51 for the 2006 and 2009.

With that kind of neglect, our 2001 went 5 years/66k miles on the painted base wheels, no evidence of corrosion or other damage from brake dust. When we cleaned them up for the trade in, they had only the small nicks and sandblasting you would expect for that many miles. Even the areas when stone nicks had chipped away the paint, showed only the minimal corrosion you would expect from driving around chicago.

Our 2006 had the polished factory wheels for 3 years/44k miles, no evidence of corrosion or damage when sold.

Our 2009 had the chrome Gumbys for about the first 20k miles, no evidence of corrosion or damage when replaced by painted factory split-spokes. The split-spokes now have about 22k miles and are doing just fine.

I'm not saying that you can't experience corrosion from brake dust, but it certainly has not been an issue on our (neglected) wheels.

victorf

Pattern of damage clearly demonstrating an circumferential flung off from one source. That could have been brake dust or leaking brake fluid, through neglect, it penetrated through the clear coat.

The picture on the first post by the OP also shown permanent damages.

This things will happened, it will bite you if you let it go and live in denial. But you have no control if you bought it used especially if the previous owner was delusional - think he knows but .........!

Pictures don't lie!!!

Very simply, a person can denial all he likes and get rid of cars/wheels before the ugliness surfaces and thus claims this thing doesn't happens, because it never happened to him! Or, he owned it, therefore he knows!

Well......maybe I am just having a case of internet diarrhea?????

VET4LES

I painted mine.

johnnybravothepimp

So I tried to use aircraft stripper to remove the clear, and then polish the wheels, but it just wasnt working out the way I had hoped!!

This is what I did to fix the problem:

johnnybravothepimp

By the way, these wheels were already ruined like this when I bought the car... I keep the car clean, waxed, and garaged.

This should hold me over till next year when I can buy new wheels!

Gearhead Jim

Some people have reported those wheels won't take a good polish no matter what you do. Others have reported good results.

SimpleC6

Hell yeah. Awesome new paint brother. Well done!

barneyz06

i've seen this before on the mrs' jeep wheels. used royal purple and it cleaned it off, well mostly. it would have removed it all if i kept after it, but it's just a jeep liberty. careful with it though, it's not real friendly to plastic coatings. never had that pitting prob with our 06 z51 with polished and clear coated wheels. not a prob on our z06 as they are just painted wheels.

0Killrwheels@Autogeek

you need to keep and use a Daytona Wheel Brush to clean the barrels weekly when you clean your wheels. Unfortunately without proper cleaning those contaminents from brakes and being so low (as well as the extreme heat) wheels can get harmed.

http://www.autogeek.net/ezdebrfca.html

victorf

It is the best tool and advice, without a doubt!!

victorf

That is true to some degree, Jim!

In general, you can polish the cast '05 five spokes to a great shine, when it stands alone.

But, when it is put next to, say, the forged '08-'09 polished Gumbies, being forged with denser molecules, the shine is near chrome, the '05 shine pales.

I have both. The set of '05 polish spoke is in storage.

It is the same as when you take an ordinary aluminum and T6 aluminum bar stock, turned then polished the od on a lathe, T6 comes out brilliant.

Gearhead Jim

Thanks!