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If you have OEM polished wheels you know how hazy and unattractive they
can look. If you have tried to polish them yourself, you have probably
gotten even more frustrated when you find out they are clear coated from the factory.
Come to find out, its really not expensive or very hard to strip and then
repolish the wheels to get a much deeper/attractive shine.
Things you'll need:
-
Stripper Solvent (We used Kleen Strip Auto Stripper from AutoZone)
-
Safety Gear (Chemical resistant gloves & regular safety glasses; Lowes etc)
-
Small paint brush(es) (to apply the stripper)
-
Polishing tools (Mother's Powerball on a corded drill worked great for us)
-
Well Ventilated Work Area
Before U Start:
My wheels were in the garage in storage, but it should go without saying
that they have to be off the car to do this :jest: You also need to remove
the center caps and any wheel weights on the front face of the wheel.
Here is a before pic:
1
Apply Stripper- With your safety gear on (it will burn your skin), poor
a little of your solvent into a small container and brush it onto your wheel.
Use alot of it... Cake it on. Only brush in one direction (back and forth will
not work nearly as well). After you get the whole wheel coated generously,
let it sit for 15-45 minutes or until it is completely blistered/bubbled up.
2
Remove Stripper- The next step is to remove the stripper from the
wheel. DO NOT follow the directions on the stripper.
DO NOT try to wipe
this stuff off using a rag, and especially do not use steel wool, unless u
want to do a lot of polishing later on with buff wheels and rouge compounds.
(This happened on our first wheel and it took me a long time to get all the
fine scratched off). Take your wheel outside and hose it off with high
pressure water, a garden hose with nozzle worked great for us, but a
pressure washer would be ideal.
3
Dry & Inspect- After u have completely washed the wheel off with
water and u can see no more trace of the blisters or residue on the wheel,
dry it off and inspect the finish. If u can still see any of the clear on it, (will
look spotty) repeat steps 1-3 again until you don't. We only had to coat
each wheel twice to completely remove the clear coat.
At this point, you can see below that there is already a huge difference in finish quality.
4
Polish- Now all you have to do is polish them. We used a Dewalt
corded drill rated at 0-2500 RPMs and a Mothers Powerball. Follow the
directions that came with the powerball and use the liquid aluminum power
polish that is made to work with it. Then take a clean soft cloth and buff it
off by hand.
If you find that you have stubborn stains or scratches that the mothers isn't
taking off, you may want to pick up the drill polishing kit from sears (9.95).
It comes with 3 buffing wheels, 4 rouge compounds and instructions on the
back. It is important to start with the most course compound: black emery,
then white rouge, then red rouge from this kit. You will also find simichrome
applied by hand to be very good at taking off the stained looking places.
Here are the final results:
These look WAYYY better now. Very worthwhile mod on these wheels. You
will be looking at more upkeep but at least you will be able to have a shine
that is much closer to the deep, wet, mirror reflective chrome look.
Tennis Challenge Champion!
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