Has anybody tried refinishing factory aluminum wheels? I just picked up an 88 parts car with the 5 slot alloys on it. The wheels look to be in great shape, minus the clear coat has started to peel away on them and those areas are getting grey and corroded looking. I would really hate to ruin them by using a poor technique so I wanted to find out opinions on this first. Thanks.
If it's just the clear coat/finish you can restore them yourself. If they are deeply pitted or anything, there is places that can completely re finish the rims to new.
They definitely don't look like they have any deep pitting, mostly dull gray discoloration where the coating has peeled off. And my eagle isn't a show car anyway, so if there's a slight imperfection there it's not a big deal. I just want to get them looking as good as I can while doing it myself. I'm mostly wondering what the best way to go about doing it is, because the machined texture looks like it could make using regular chemical paint stripper turn into a mess.
you can also have the wheels milled down a fraction like pyra did http://forums.amceaglenest.com/index.php?topic=15595.300 (http://forums.amceaglenest.com/index.php?topic=15595.300) page 21
Those wheels look amazing machined down like that. That price is too much out of my range though, considering I still have a list of about 15 other things that need to get done that are more important than what the wheels look like (rusty brake lines and a cracked flex plate are on the top of the list). I was just going to keep the 5 spoke steel wrangler wheels that are on Virginia now, but I think it would be cool to have original AMC wheels on it and I need new tires so now's the time to shine up the wheels if i'm going to do it.
I sandblasted mine, and clearcoated them
Here's my before and after of my rims:
(http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu84/whuntmore/rims504.jpg)
(http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu84/whuntmore/rims506.jpg)
Yeah, I saw your pictures of these. Maybe it's just the picture, but it looks like the sandblasting pretty much took the shine off them, I was hoping to keep the original shiny look.
I can tell you how I did mine but its a very time consuming project but yet very rewarding. First I washed them good,then scrubed them with a scotch brite pad and then rewashed them. Then I sprayed them with paint stripper to remove all the remaining clear coat.Let it sit for five to ten minutes then with rubber gloves on scrubed them with a scotch brite pad.Had to do this step a couple of times to remove all clear coat then washed them good and dried them.Then I used 320 wet sand paper and begain sanding them. Use plenty of water and sand them until all scratches are gone and all machining marks,Don't rush this step and take your time,remember I said this is a time consuming project.After I completely sanded the first wheel and was satisified with it I then started the process over again only this time with 400 grit wet paper.After that I used 600 wet,then 800 wet,then 1000 wet. and finally with 1200 wet.After all this sanding your wheel will still be a very smooth but still dull wheel.After washing the wheel dry it well then use some Mothers billet aluminum polish and polish the areas of the wheel that you want to shine like chrome.I used several old white socks that I had and after polishing you won't believe your eyes and all of a sudden all that sanding becomes worthwhile and well worth the time and effort. After sanding and polishing all wheels I taped off the sections between the spokes and sprayed those sections with charrcoal met. wheel paint. After the paint had dried I then sprayed only the charrcoal met.sections with clear. Then I untaped the wheels and retaped them and sprayed the bars in the wheels flat black with no clear. Some folks will spray the entire wheel with clear but I prefered not to fearing the clear will yellow after time and besides I enjoying polishing the wheels anyway and it only takes a few minutes time to repolishes Hope this helps answer your question about refinishing alloy wheels but remember like I said it takes time and lots of it but well worth it in the end and cost wise its wery reasonable I think total was less then fifty bucks but the wheels will look like a million after there finished. Good luck and hope this helps!
Quote from: eagleman on September 10, 2011, 10:36:08 AM
I can tell you how I did mine but its a very time consuming project but yet very rewarding. First I washed them good,then scrubed them with a scotch brite pad and then rewashed them. Then I sprayed them with paint stripper to remove all the remaining clear coat.Let it sit for five to ten minutes then with rubber gloves on scrubed them with a scotch brite pad.Had to do this step a couple of times to remove all clear coat then washed them good and dried them.Then I used 320 wet sand paper and begain sanding them. Use plenty of water and sand them until all scratches are gone and all machining marks,Don't rush this step and take your time,remember I said this is a time consuming project.After I completely sanded the first wheel and was satisified with it I then started the process over again only this time with 400 grit wet paper.After that I used 600 wet,then 800 wet,then 1000 wet. and finally with 1200 wet.After all this sanding your wheel will still be a very smooth but still dull wheel.After washing the wheel dry it well then use some Mothers billet aluminum polish and polish the areas of the wheel that you want to shine like chrome.I used several old white socks that I had and after polishing you won't believe your eyes and all of a sudden all that sanding becomes worthwhile and well worth the time and effort. After sanding and polishing all wheels I taped off the sections between the spokes and sprayed those sections with charrcoal met. wheel paint. After the paint had dried I then sprayed only the charrcoal met.sections with clear. Then I untaped the wheels and retaped them and sprayed the bars in the wheels flat black with no clear. Some folks will spray the entire wheel with clear but I prefered not to fearing the clear will yellow after time and besides I enjoying polishing the wheels anyway and it only takes a few minutes time to repolishes Hope this helps answer your question about refinishing alloy wheels but remember like I said it takes time and lots of it but well worth it in the end and cost wise its wery reasonable I think total was less then fifty bucks but the wheels will look like a million after there finished. Good luck and hope this helps!
I was going to suggest this approach, but not having done it myself I didn't want to take responsibility for suggesting it would work. I thought you might put in huge amounts of effort and not get a shiny product but now that you have someone who's done it validate it I'm thinking that's well worth doing.
I would love to take a picture cause you would not believe just how nice they really are. Problem is I have yet to figure out just how to post pictures.My daughter in law said she knows how and after she recovers from her recent surgery she will come over and show me how this is done,but in the mean time trust me this process will work with amazing results.Just don't rush it,take your time and when you get tired stop! Tomorrow is another day. In the end you will be impressed wiyh your efforts.
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I'm looking forward to seeing your pictures, eagleman. That sounds like a ton of work, to have to sand them to the point that all the machined grooves are smooth, but I can picture what these wheels would look like perfectly smooth and polished, with the slots in the wheels painted to match the metallic brown on the body.
Do you think this could be done with an orbital sander instead of by hand? Or would that be too aggressive/not work?
Thanks again for the input.
my guess is you could use a pneumatic wet sander to do the trick but I'd be hitting them with a block as much as possible if it where me cause them pneumatic jobs are a pain to use and they are expensive. I bought one for work cause i thought it would help me get the dirt out the paint quicker when I buff but by the time I get the dang thing set up correctly to use i would already be done using the tried and true foam block to wrap the wet paper around
Ya know I thought about a orbital sander then thought better of it. Didn't want to take the chance of ruining my alloy wheel to save a little elbow greese.The way I see it my labor is free so if I were you I'd forgore the obbital sander and don't take the risk.
I'd also recommend against using power tools for the sanding. They work great on flat or slightly curved surfaces, but in a wheel where you've got a lot of tight corners and sharp angles it won't sit flat against those surfaces and could quickly flatten corners/gouge the metal and you'll have deep imperfections you can't fix. You could maybe use it for the small part of the spokes that are flat but it wouldn't work for any spots on the outer lip.
My wheels are like the one Whuntmore posted earlier in the thread. It seems like most of the wheel is smooth and flat enough that if I keep the sander moving around it might not be too bad. If they were like the 5 spoke wheels like priya's I wouldn't even consider it, they look like they have a lot more edges to get the sander caught on and cause damage. I might try it with some 300 grit very lightly and see what happens. If it looks like it's not going to work well i'll stop right there and finish it by hand, before it goes too deep and does damage. I figure i'll have to do the outer ring and lip by hand, but if I could get the centers done with the sander it would save a lot of time. And although my time and labor doesn't cost me anything, It's also not the easiest thing for me to come by. It could be a 5 month process by the time they were done by hand and my tires will be worn through before then.
I think I might start working on it tomorrow night with a sanding block and see how painfully slow it goes. I'll post back with my findings.
Well good luck on your project.Having the newer style wheel I believe these came on 85 and up cars where as the spoke style were 84 and back you might be ok with the power sander.Like I said just take your time and you should be fine.Yeah I understand the free time thing so just be careful and enjoy the finished wheels. Be sure to keep us posted on your progress. Will post pictures of mine with the help of thereverendbill and my old brain once I figure it out pictures will be on the way!
I would start with 600 wet/dry instead of the 300. 300 is gonna be way to agressive to start out with
I'll have to check at Lowes and see if they have anything finer for my orbital. The finest I have is 300 which really doesn't seem very aggressive but if you think it is, i'll try to find 600
300 grit will leave noticeable marks when you paint. personally i would use the 600 grit followed up by 800 grit just to make sure it is as smooth as possible but that's just me.
Quote from: WoodenBirdOfPrey on September 12, 2011, 10:37:29 PM
I'll have to check at Lowes and see if they have anything finer for my orbital. The finest I have is 300 which really doesn't seem very aggressive but if you think it is, i'll try to find 600
600 grit (wet) is what i use at work to prep body panels for repaint (mainly if there is dirt in the base and the panel has already been cleared over) and it'll cut through the paint and into the primer in no time. I think your final grit should be 2000. I would highly recommend you wet sand the wheels because every time to you get the paper wet and sand your keeping the wheel clean.
It all depends on how deep your imperfections in the wheel are. 600 grit isn't going to remove anything but the most superficial of imperfections or you'll be sanding a very very long time. It really doesn't matter if you use 300 grit to start if you subsequently go to 600 grit, 1000, and so on. The higher grits will remove the rougher 300 grit scraches so there is no danger of 300 grit scratches showing through after you've worked through to the higher grits.
I wanted to make the "4 wheel drive" emblem on my glove box door shiny, I started with 240 grit, then to 320, then to 600, 1000, 1500 and then polished with a buffing compound and final coating from a headlight lens polishing kit. It came out nice and shiny and scratch free.
Here is a hint, If you want to get the clear coat off use GOOF OFF or lacquer thinner!! GOOF OFF is easier on the skin
I recommend a glass bead blast followed by a progressive wet sanding session. The bead blasting will speed everything up and give you a nice matte finish on anything you don't want polished (in the grooves) I have done this to many wheels over the years. You can but a decent cheap blast cabinet for under a couple hundred bucks. You can borrow one for free. Every shop should have a blast cabinet handy for restore work.
I finally got myself motivated to start working on the wheels. Winter is coming, and I need new tires for the snow.
This is the wheel I started experimenting with. Unfortunately the center cap is damaged on this one, the parts car was in a rollover. Anybody know where I can get a good center cap for one of these for cheap?
(http://photos.toast.net/ImageResizeCache/3192ce3a2ba242b622d44a6d2557e90a.jpg)
I just used an electric orbital with 220 grit, because that's what I have around I only did about a quarter of the wheel, just to check how well an electric sander is going to get the job done. I sanded the bottom right part of the wheel, and the lip of the wheel all the way around. This is probably about 10 or 15 minutes worth of sanding. It turned out surprisingly smooth considering that I used 220, looking at it up close there's no visible scratches, swirls, etc. like I thought I would get. I think the speed of the sander and applying only light pressure helped.
(http://photos.toast.net/ImageResizeCache/7fef36f6ac68c2bccf58fa3df64cb32a.jpg)
Then I went over it with some polish real quick. It'll polish out a lot better than this, I just didn't put the time into it since the wheel needs a lot more work before it's really ready to be polished. I just wanted a sneak peek of what the finished product could be.
(http://photos.toast.net/ImageResizeCache/79e8df8e1ab0f6a323d2c6b263047a5c.jpg)
(http://photos.toast.net/ImageResizeCache/e1564732e9cabc20ccea68bfcf784916.jpg)
I like what I'm seeing so far. I think I'll continue to get the corners and other tough spots with a foam block, and do everything that I can with the orbital and i'm going to see if I can find some finer paper at Advance tomorrow when I pick up my flex plate.
looking good
Looks like you're on the right track.
I think I'm abandoning the idea of sanding and polishing these wheels, as long as it's taking, I don't think I have enough free time in a year to finish them, never mind actually getting them done before snow comes and I need the tires. I didn't want to do this but I think my only options right now are keeping the Jeep wheels on it or painting these factory alloys. I think after cleaning up the spots where the coating has peeled I should be able to paint these silver and maintain a stock appearance. They won't be as sharp looking as if i got them polished, but I'm not letting this car turn into my next money pit, I'm still trying to sell the last one.