PatG

I got some aluminum wheels from a fellow forum member a while back. They looked like this when I got them. (not a shiny spot on the whole set)



After many hours of polishing I now have these.



I polished them with a buffing wheel mounted on my Delta wood lathe, followed by a hand held polisher for the centers. There was a lot of sanding out nicks and scratches in between. Finished them up with Mothers Polish.

Going to get my wheels mounted on them tomorrow.

[Modified by PatG, 4:52 PM 2/9/2002]


[Modified by PatG, 4:53 PM 2/9/2002]


[Modified by PatG, 4:53 PM 2/9/2002]

Warp70

It looks like your hard work paid off!!!! The rims look great :cool: Make sure you post the before and after pics of your car, once you install the new rims......so we can all get a true sense of what they look like. :jester

jerryp58

They look great :eek:
Very nice job.

Warp70

Just to give you a heads up on the size of your wheel pics......they're huge!!!! You have just become enemy #1 of all of the Dial up guys and gals on the forum :eek: :eek: :eek: :D

ScubaJKD

Looks great that is alot of hard work but it paid off. Tell us about the process you used to do this and what products. Thanks

:cheers:

jvm

make sure you know the people who put your wheels on!!!! make sure they know whay you'll do if they mess up!!!

JimmyS5600

:seeya Thumbs up,gooood job!

PatG

Warp70,

"Just to give you a heads up on the size of your wheel pics......they're huge"

That is after I halved the size, cropped them and saved them as compressed JPGs. This camera I have is really awesome (3.4 mega pixels). Next time I'll chop them down some more.

ScubaJKD,

Tell us about the process.

First I roughed them out with a tightly sewn buffing wheel and polishing rouge on the lathe setup as mentioned in my first post. You have to 'comb' out the wheel often as the rouge and oxidation will cause the surface of the wheel to clog. Also, dont bother trying this with a drill, they just dont spin fast enough or have enough power to clean bad oxidation. At this point the majority of the oxidation was removed and any small nicks or scratches show up with the dark rouge. Depending on the size of the nick I would start sanding with 150 or 220 grit sandpaper until the surface was smooth. Then moved to 320, 400 and 600 grit sandpaper. Always cover a larger and larger area with the progressive grits to remove and sratches from the previous grit. Once you are at 600 you can almost see the aluminum waiting to shine. After the 600 grit is done it is back to the polishing wheel and if you spent enough time sanding the surface will be mirrored like new. For some areas I used a Dremmel detailing sander which has a bunch if interchangable tips for different contours. I always finished up with the 600 by hand following the normal curve of the wheel. The final touch was with Mothers Polish. I'm going to leave them bare (no clearcoat) and just go over them every couple of months with the Mothers.

VTHokie77Vette

They look sweet. I really want to get mine to look like that.

Paul L

Congratulations! I sourced this wheel and three others from a salvage yard in Arizona two years ago. Yes, there is a great deal of satisfaction in making them good again. And it takes about three hours per Wheel. But well worth it. And after that the upkeep is minimal.

Eddie 70

Great job. Makes one of the best looking wheels ever put on a vette look even better. I may start looking for some of these wheels.

Sean Willard

Wow those really look great! That gives me a lot of motivation to get mine looking like that. Thanks for the "how to steps"! Do you think a bench grinder with a buffing wheel would be adequate to do this job for those of us w/o a laith? What are you going to mount for rubber? Please let us know when you get them back on your vette. Again nice job on the wheels :cool:
:cheers:

PatG

"Do you think a bench grinder with a buffing wheel would be adequate...? "

Real polishers are essentially bench grinders with a longer shaft. The only problem with a normal bench grinder is how far you can reach and they normally have guards that may or may not be able to be removed.

"What are you going to mount for rubber?"

BFG 255 60 R15 that are on my steel wheels now.

Thanks to everyone who said "they look great". Can't wait to get them on the car.

82dukman

Pat, they look awesome. I'm in the same situation too. I am purchasing some from a fellow fourm member next week and they need to be polished. I am considering buying a "Wheel Restoration" kit from Eastwoods. It comes with the buff wheels and two types of rouge. Keep us posted on how they stand up w/o clearcoating. I was considering clearcoating mine when they are done.
I'm glad you metioned the dremel. I would have forgotten to get the buffing "cups" for mine to get in the centers.


[Modified by 82dukman, 12:27 AM 2/10/2002]

PatG

82dukman,

If you read closely I used a Dremmel detail sander for sanding. I tried my dremmel rotary tool in the centers and it did not have enough power to break the oxidation before the tip flew off. I went to harbor frieght here locally and got one of these.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41213

and rigged a buffing wheel onto it. If you get one hold on tight :)

82dukman

I understood your original post but I have a homemade bench grinder which I can fit with the buffing wheels. The only problem is getting into the crevices, which I would use the dremel for, and holding a 25 lb wheel in the air. I was thinking about using the Dremel for the FINAL polishing, after all of the rouge steps were done. What do you think, and thanks for the advice

PatG

If you have a grinder that you can mount a buffing wheel on then it should work great. I found that speed does matter but most grinders spin at 3600 RPM. Below 2000 RPM gets marginal.

My experience with the dremmel was that it just would not work to get the oxidation of of these wheels. For final polishing putting the Mothers on by hand was the easiest part of the job.

wes76

PatG... Those wheels look excellent, well worth the effort put into them...
Good job! I currently have Crarger mags on my 76, but I just finished sandblasting and painting my original rally's. They should look good, just need to buy 4 more BFG TA's... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
:cheers:

corvettemaster

Wow! :eek: :eek:
I have never saw any aluminum wheels shine that much!
Those before/after pics have given me inspiration to get mine looking like that. I'll add it to my list of things to do on the vette. :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:

VTHokie77Vette

Is there a clearcoat already on the wheels that needs to be taken off with paint stripper? Or do you just sand it off?