Restoring Wheels

[Prafeston]

Any tips on restoring some wheels? I've got a set of the Cherokee TurboCast wheels and they are in pretty rough shape...well at least two of them are. I purchased one wheel awhile ago and it wasn't too bad, but I took a wire brush to it with my cordless drill and it turned out pretty good. It's not perfect, but looks better. Started doing the same thing with one of the bad wheels I just purchased and it's taking a lot of elbow grease and battery power. One spoke and a bit of the rim ate up two batteries.

Was wondering if there is an easier way besides just taking them to a shop and having them refinished...

Here are some pics of what the wheels look like.

This is what the original wheel looked like...with one spot I had already wire wheeled.


And here is the finished product.




Now the new wheels have some deeper corrosion so it's taking a bit longer to get it cleaned up nicely. Not to mention a little more force down on the wire wheel.


Here's the whole wheel with the one spot I already did.


And a close up pic of the spot I cleaned up last night.

[philotomy]

I'd take em to my fav mechanic friend and see if they could  blast em with something easier than sand,shouldn't cost much maybe $5 per rim?

[Prafeston]

I live in a pretty small town and I personally don't know anyone that does sand/media blasting. I was looking into purchasing my own last night...but it doesn't seem worth it to me...not sure how much use I'd get out of it and I don't have a compressor so that's two things I'd have to buy.

Gonna put a wanted ad out on the local classified. See if that yields anything.

[philotomy]

I know how you feel ,my mech is 26 miles away,and have no way of towing down there for him to do his thing.it may be worth it though,I can't see trying to do it by hand and yeah the cost vs use of getting one...I think I'd start blasting everything .

[Prafeston]

What are those Turbine/TurboCast wheels made out of? Is it a steel or aluminum alloy or something?

[Whuntmore]

I blasted mine with Glass.  Turned out nice, but I can't tell you how to re-do that Machined look on the outer of the spokes.

[eaglefreek]

Aluminum.

[Prafeston]

Thanks Eaglefreek.

I found this on another forum.

"Aircraft stripper (to remove factory grey paint) then #00 steel wool then clear coat makes these wheels looks perty."

There was a pic but it was attached so I can't link to it. The wheel did look pretty good.

[Draekon]

Thanks Eaglefreek.

I found this on another forum.

"Aircraft stripper (to remove factory grey paint) then #00 steel wool then clear coat makes these wheels looks perty."

There was a pic but it was attached so I can't link to it. The wheel did look pretty good.

[Prafeston]

Nice! Good find. I couldn't figure out how to get the Image Location. It wasn't working when I tried.

[philotomy]

sweet

[eaglefreek]

I tried the aircraft stripper on 2 of the same exact wheels. It didn't work for me. I spent half a day and the wheels looked worse. It only took patches of the factory paint off. I took the wheels to a wheel refinishing place to get media blasted and luckily they check all wheels before performing any work. One was bent and the other was warped. I was lucky a scored 5 of them in decent shape when I was in CO. Good luck.