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I have a ‘73 with uncoated aluminum wheels and a badly dinged up rocker panel. I removed the rockers, banged them out a bit and sanded them down using 80...800 grit sand paper. I then used a Black, Brown, and White rouge and they have a mirror finish. For the uncoated wheels I bought Mother’s Aluminum Polish with a polishing cone and ball. They came out very nice as well. I then washed the car and dried it. The wheels went dull, but the rocker panel is as sharp as before.
From my basic knowledge, please correct me if I’m wrong, there rims are sanded and buffed to a lower grit then I did on the rocker panels. The Mother’s polish is a “color polish”, and once washed off the wheels, they lose their shine. So, I would have to polish the wheels using Black, Brown and White rouge, if I wanted to maintain the shine through washes. Should I also do a Red rouge, and a clear coat?
Richard I had a 79 with factory aluminum wheels that looked nasty
when I bought that car. I sanded with 320,400,600,800,and then
1000. I also used Mothers and the wheels looked great. It holds
the shine well after washings. The fella I sold the car to,a year ago,the wheels still look good.
There are aluminum sealers that you can spray or wipe on the wheels much like a quick detailer that will slowdown the oxidation process. It sounds like you may need to freshen up to polish before applying a sealer. Check out the Autogeek web site or just give them a call.
As offered an aluminum uncoated wheel is always in a state of decay or tarnish. Its the nature of bare metal. After polishing and getting to the brightness and level wanted, you should seal or coat them for longer term protection. It wont last forever, that would include having wheel clear-coated.
If I seal the wheels, with a Sealer or Clear Coat, they have to be free of any product (Mother's). They are dull without the product.
The thing is that the rocker panels required no product, not Mother's or a Sealer, after I washed them. I know that it will not last forever, but a few washes is not asking for much.
Doing the Rouge on the rockers was dirty work, and the wheels will be harder, so I'm checking if anyone has had a similar experience.
Last edited by RichardEngland; 05-17-2016 at 09:13 AM.
When I ground, sanded, buffed and hand polished all the aluminum suspension components on my C-6, I used Mothers Aluminum Polish for the final hand polish after the buffing wheel. I then sealed the aluminum with Rejex ( It was the only thing I had at the time). It looked great for about a year because the car is never driven in the rain or on wet roads. Back to your issue, there must be something in the aluminum used back in the mid-seventies. Polish it out and immediately seal it with a good sealer made for aluminum and see how that works. Worst case you could always clear-coat everything. The clear-coat will dull the shine to some degree but give you great protection against oxidation.
You're dealing with two different types of surfaces.
The wheels are cast aluminum, right? It's a rather porous finish, especially in the slots (unless they're painted). Washing might have "flushed" some polish (and black residue) to the surface, and some alcohol-based glass cleaner and a microfiber towel should clean that up; if there's black residue on the towel, that would be the tell. Either way, a quick follow-up polish should brighten them back to looking good.
I believe the rockers are anodized aluiminum? Anodizing is a permanent finish, so if they are in good shape, they don't dull-down; in fact, the Mag & Aluminum Polish would not normally be recommended for anodized finishes in good condition (only distressed anodizing). But they are a different type of aluminum, even if you removed the anodized finish with the rouge. If they are stainless steel, then that explains in another way how they held their shine.
Cast aluminum vs forged/sheet... interesting point Jim.
The glass cleaner did not flush out any residue, but I will do a quick polish tomorrow, I'm sure that it will brighten back up, I just don't want to do it every time I wash the car.
The rockers were anodized, and scratched, but the 80 grit sandpaper took care of that.
05-16-2016, 09:09 AM
Question about aluminum polishing
