Restoring aluminum wheels?

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

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.

[Sunny]

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.

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

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.

[thereverendbill]

you can also have the wheels milled down a fraction like pyra did http://forums.amceaglenest.com/index.php?topic=15595.300 page 21

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

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.

[Whuntmore]

I sandblasted mine, and clearcoated them

Here's my before and after of my rims:

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

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.

[eagleman]

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!

[priya]

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.

[eagleman]

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.

[jim]

Most of us use free Photobucket accounts.
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We recommend clicky pics.  This is a thumbnail picture that enlarges when clicked.
Photobucket has made a change in the way you copy the code.
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For a single clicky pic, hover over the picture.  This will open a drop down menu.  Click on the fourth window, img.
It will then say "copied".
Go to the thread where you want to put the picture and paste it in.
For multiple clicky pics, hover over the pictures and click on the small box at the bottom of the picture.
Scroll down and click on "Choose action".  Click "Generate code for selected".
This will open another page.  Click on the third box, "IMG for bulletin boards & forums".  It will say "copied".  Paste it into the thread of your choice. 
In both instances you can select "Preview" to make sure it is what you want before you post it.

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

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.

[thereverendbill]

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

[eagleman]

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.

[priya]

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.