how do you clean an polish aluminum wheels? i have 4 that sat outside in the weather for awhile and lost the shine. i used mothers aluminum polish and a drill with a polishing pad to get 2 of them to clean up but i think they could be better what can i do? after they get a good shine what can i do to keep the shine?
Try Busch Aluminum Polish you can get it at a tractor trailer chrome shop. After using this you will just throw the mothers away…as far as keeping the shine, you just have to keep after it.
I wonder how it would end up with a clear powdercoat over a polished wheel. Might be worth giving AMF a call.
I have seen this done, but over time it ends up just like the factory clear. A rock chips the powder, and then water gets under it, and they look worse than if you just didn’t clean them at all.
There is a company–I think it is Eastwood that makes a bare metal clear powder coat specifically for that purpose.
Also, try going to Caswell Plating’s forum—there is a ton of info to help u shine them up. I’d offer to help, but I still need to refine my polishing skills. Your best bet is probably going to be to use a polishing compound and a buffing wheel—like one you can put on an air die grinder. Harbor Freight is the cheapest place to get that kind of stuff around here.
i have a polishing pad on the end of a drill for now. it gets alot of the oxidation off and has some shine but like you im not a refined polisher just a douce bag that thought 2 complete sets of aluminum wheels instead of 1. good thing is after i get 1 set polished i can put them on while im polishing the other set.:nuts:
Get some very fine sandpaper and sand them clean then polish them if there really bad
You need something faster than a drill. Trust me, to try to get the right shine would just burn up ur drill. To get the highest shine, you need to get a loose cotton wheel and use it with white compound, then go to a canton flannel wheel with jeweler’s rouge compound. Check http://www.eastwoodco.com/index.jsp for the right wheels. Get the smallest ones (4" I think) and use those with a die grinder or bench grinder with flex attachment to get into tight spaces.
This is if they had been polished before. If they were never polished, PM me and I can provide you with a booklet of info I have on my hard drive that details how to smooth them out then polish them.
I know how to do this stuff, I just haven’t had a lot of time to practice it. The few things I have done did come out looking pretty good for being practice though.