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does anyone have any tips on cleaning the inside of oem polished wheels. i took mine off and there is some serious pitting on the inside part of the wheel. i used a mild orange spray degreaser and it took most of the grunge off but there is still quite abit of pitting. any suggestions. i was thinking about fine steel wool and then super fine diamond sand paper, but are the insides clearcoated???
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There is clear coat on the barrels of the factory polished wheels, and if you attempt your method, you will take it off.
I would suggest that you wash them thoroughly with whatever car wash solution you use on the body, dry them and then try going at the barrels with a clay bar and spray detailer. Once you remove most of the grunge, a good coat of what ever wax or protectant that you use will make keeping them clean at lot easier. The clear coat on the wheels should be treated the same way you treat your paint, as the clear coat is in all actuality paint.
I just used Meguiars Hot Wheel Cleaner for my inner wheel barrels. Spray on, light scrub with an old sponge, and rinse! my wheels are chrome, so it was easy. Great cleaner though. Just don't get any on your rotors!
I just did my polished clear coated barrels this past weekend. They weren't all that bad, but what I did was wash with Meguiar's Gold Class soap, dried, then did the Meguiar's three step deep crystal system, 1. cleaner, 2. polish, and 3. wax. I checked the containers and they are all clear coat safe.
Came out real good, but I did find some chips in the finish in the barrels, presumably from stones. I guess it can't be avoided if you are gonna drive the car...and I sure am!
There is clear coat on the barrels of the factory polished wheels, and if you attempt your method, you will take it off.
I would suggest that you wash them thoroughly with whatever car wash solution you use on the body, dry them and then try going at the barrels with a clay bar and spray detailer. Once you remove most of the grunge, a good coat of what ever wax or protectant that you use will make keeping them clean at lot easier. The clear coat on the wheels should be treated the same way you treat your paint, as the clear coat is in all actuality paint.
that's what i thought, cleaning is the easy part but there seems to be some severe pitting, guess its gonna take good ole elbow grease.
There is clear coat on the barrels of the factory polished wheels, and if you attempt your method, you will take it off.
I would suggest that you wash them thoroughly with whatever car wash solution you use on the body, dry them and then try going at the barrels with a clay bar and spray detailer. Once you remove most of the grunge, a good coat of what ever wax or protectant that you use will make keeping them clean at lot easier. The clear coat on the wheels should be treated the same way you treat your paint, as the clear coat is in all actuality paint.
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Originally Posted by blacksedan87
There is clear coat on the barrels of the factory polished wheels, and if you attempt your method, you will take it off.
I would suggest that you wash them thoroughly with whatever car wash solution you use on the body, dry them and then try going at the barrels with a clay bar and spray detailer. Once you remove most of the grunge, a good coat of what ever wax or protectant that you use will make keeping them clean at lot easier. The clear coat on the wheels should be treated the same way you treat your paint, as the clear coat is in all actuality paint.
Steel wool and/or sandpaper would not be a good mix with the clearcoat.
If there is pitting, you will need to strip the clear coat and wet sand (or other) and buff out the pits using a spiral sewn buffing wheel on your electric drill and some abrasive buffing compounds
You will want a home paint stripper ( something with as much Methylene Choride as possible)
Once stripped I used a red colored synthetic 3M sanding pad ( made for polishing metals) that I bought along with the paint stripper at Home Depot.
I cut it to fit my palm sander and put a light coat of Mothers power Aluminum polish and wet sanded away... until the pits were gone.
Next I used the buffing wheel with jewellers rouge.
Expect to strip 4-6 times to get all the clear coat off and them at least 1 hour of wet sanding and 1/2 hour of buffing per wheel
Finish off with a Mothers Powerball.
87K miles, driven year round in Michigan
C5 Naples gave me the inspiration to tackle this... If you want to see some awesome pics of previously pitted barrels that now are mirror finished.. search for his posts...
There is clear coat on the barrels of the factory polished wheels, and if you attempt your method, you will take it off.
I would suggest that you wash them thoroughly with whatever car wash solution you use on the body, dry them and then try going at the barrels with a clay bar and spray detailer. Once you remove most of the grunge, a good coat of what ever wax or protectant that you use will make keeping them clean at lot easier. The clear coat on the wheels should be treated the same way you treat your paint, as the clear coat is in all actuality paint.
Bingo,
This method worked wonders with my old wagon wheels when I tried it. Great answer Randy.
I use a dedicated california duster on my wheels between car washes, even though I have ceramic brakes. You can not see the dust on my wheels, but if you run your hand over them, you can see it on your fingers, the duster takes this off.
I have a 2004 A4 coupe (bought 6 years ago). The barrels were horrible and they also had bad pitting on the front of the rims. Here's a comprehensive explanation I posted on how to get rid of ALL the oxidation and pitting on your rims. Roll up your sleeves, it's going to take a while, but once done, you will be thrilled with the results. The only thing I'm adding this year is, after I clean/polish the rims (annual event), I'll spray them with McKees 37 Wheel Coating. It's a nano coating that seals the surface area and resists brake dust, moisture, etc. My hope is that once cleaned/polished/coated, frequent washing will keep them looking A-1 for an entire year (as advertised) so each spring won't require as much of a clean-up to keep them looking perfect. I'm also trying Adams Polish for the first time to see how it compares to Mothers. Good luck.
I have the same issue with my thin spoke polished wheels. No problems on the outside, but a bunch of pitting on the inside. I have cleaned them well. but I don't think the pitting can be removed without machining the wheels again. It's in the metal. You would have to look hard to see inside the wheels but it's there. I have not done it, but I'm thinking that painting the inside of the wheels black would really hide any problems.
With the wheel off clean the inside barrels with wheel cleaner for clear coat wheels then use a mild polishing compound on a power buffer if you have one.You can do this by hand if you have energy to do this.If you sand the pits than you are going to have to polish the pit spots.After all that work you can clear coat the inside barrels.This is a time consuming project project. I do this once a year on my thin spokes but don’t have the pits to deal with.And yes the barrels are clearcoated.
If the pitting is deep into the metal, there's not too much you can do. My barrels were pitted pretty badly, and even though I was able to polish all the oxidation out of them, small tiny marks still remain where the pitting was it's deepest. I could have ground them down deeper but thought it wasn't necessary since the barrels aren't up close and personal. I had some bad pitting on the front of my rims, mostly in the area where the spokes meet the outer rim (the corners). I had to get down pretty deep to remove them (which you can see in my photos). If yours are really bad, try painting them like you said. If you don't like they way the black paint looks, you can always strip it back off. Before machining deep pitting off the rims, we have to make sure the rims will remain structurally sound by not removing too much material. If all else fails, the chrome re-pops look nice, although I'd definitely paint the barrels black since that part of the rims are not chrome.
cleaning polished oem wheels
