Wheel/Rim Refinishing ????

[Blue1990]

I have been researching having my wheels refinshed and have been surfing the internet. I came across a site that sells kits and was wondering if anyone had any experience using them or had any thoughts they could share. The links to the sites are below. Thank you.

Wheel Smoothing And Buffing Kit

Wheel Buffing Kit

Wheel Smoothing Kit

[Guest imported_jim13a]

Blue,

I also had terrible looking wheels on my '89. I took some paint remover and applied it to my wheels, let sit for about 15 minutes and wash off with soap and water. Do this two or three times per wheel to remove all of the clear coat. Important: Remove your wheel centers before appling paint remover. Also if you do the job while wheel is on the car, be careful not to get paint remover on the body.

Anyway, my wheels look like new after removing the factory clear coat that was on the wheel. Monthly cleaning with a good 2 part aluminum wheel cleaner will keep them from getting tarnished.

Good Luck!

Jim Tedesco

'89 pearl white Reatta

[Cargirl]

I am not sure how bad your wheels are, but I owned an '89 that had a terrible foggy glaze over the rims and I was in a panic about how to make 'em nice. Well, I applied Mothers metal cleaner to them and they shined up like new. I think Mothers is the best thing that happened to automobiles since gasoline!!

[jimustanguitar]

The wheels on my 90 were horrible. I thought it was just clearcoat, so I bought a product called aircraft stripper at wal mart, that strips paint and does not harm the aluminum finish. The product worked perfectly at removing the clearcoat, but not clearing up the oxidation that had formed on my wheels through the scrapes. What I did was:

pop the emblems out of the center caps (they are only glued in with silicone) be careful not to pull the gold foil looking paint off of the back of them... mask off the tire rubber very well (the stripper eats plastic like it's nothing), and apply the stripper wiping the clearcoat off each time (don't get it on your hands, it burns instantly, even where you wouldn't expect it like on your fingertips) and repeat this until all of the clearcoat is removed... Then to get the spun aluminum look back on the centercaps, I chucked them in a drill press using a cutoff wheel collet, and spun them as fast as I could while dragging 80 grit sandpaper over them. After this, I repeated with softer and softer grits until I got to 400 grit or somewhere in that range. Then I clearcoated the center caps and glued the emblems back on. They look better than new, so much better infact that I am currently using a brass brush wheel on a dremel tool (the flex shaft helps a lot!) to clean up the bare aluminum on the wheels themselves. If you try this, consider it somewhat like sanding wood, go with the grain, you want the brush's spinning to perfectly line up with the groove that you are cleaning. It looks good so far, but it's taking some time. Don't use a steel brush, it will gouge the aluminum very quickly. This is a delicate process, and you will be sorry if you sit down and try and refinish all of your wheels in one night, you will make them look worse if you are not careful and do not take your time. Good Luck.

[Vincent Vega]

Sounds pretty easy. Mine are kind of dented too. I did take care of some of the dents by removing the plastic backing/attaching part and pounding the dents out. How did you attach it to a drill? For the wheels I thought of mounting them on the rear and spinning them by hand to achieve the "turned" finish.

[Jim]

Jimustanguitar,

What type of clear coat did you use. Spray can? Enamel? Lacquer? Polyurathane?

Did you prepare the bare aluminum with anything before applying the clear.