Removing Clear Coat Fom Wheels
 

I have a set of polishes C6 rims and want to remove the clear coat.

Anyone ever done this?? Recommendations on products to use??


Thanks.......

C5naples has done this with great results. I'm sure he will chime in.

I used Aircraft Coating Remover on my aging 4 Runner wheels. Came out great. I bought it at Checker. Comes in a spray can. (Looks like a can of black spray paint)
Spray it on, 10 minutes later the clear coat is all blistered up. Wash off with a bucket of car wash soap and rag, hose off.

If you have any clip on wheel weights you'll have to pop them off as the stripper can't get behind the weights.

I did mine, but I left the tires on so I used a brush on paint stripper from Home Depot. Also used a little Methyl ethyl ketone. Polished with Mothers aluminum polish on a 5inch spiral sewn buffing wheel on a cordless drill. Here are the pics, the wheels prior were in bad shape, really bad in the barrels.
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I'm doing mine right now. The premium grades (they claim to do epoxy) of ordinary paint stripper work reasonably well, removing about 98% of the clear coat on the first application. I did find that there were small areas that were totally resistant to multiple applications of stripper. Those areas can be removed with 1000 grit sandpaper used wet. For any light corrosion or scratches I found 1000 grit was about the best bet. Then Mother's polish (or whatever) will bring out the luster pretty fast and easy with minimal scratches remaining. You can use a lot coarser paper (i.e. 220) if you need to deal with major damage/corrosion but you need to follow up with at least 1000 if you want it to look nice when you polish.

They are easy to repair after the clear is removed. You can sand and buff out scratches.

Has anyone put clearcoat back on?

How hard is it keeping them looking nice compared to the clearcoat?

Also thinking of removing clearcoat, but my wheels are so easy to keep clean now.

Any tips on using the stripper?
 

Did the stripper affect the valve stems or how did you protect the rubber on the stems? Do you have any hints or tips to do this properly? Were the fumes pretty bad? Thanks :thumbs:

lurk

I'd like to do mine as well, I'm just worried about how much it will take to keep them clean and shiny. :willy:

If you are reasonably satisfied with the appearance of your clear coated wheels, the small amount of additional luster that bare polished aluminum offers is probably not worth the effort. In my case there was already significant corrosion on all of the wheels. The '01 car spent most of its time near the salt water. There was also curb rash on the front rims that needed to be filed, sanded, and polished. The stripper fumes are not bad if you do the work outside. You don't need to let the stripper get down inside the valve stem recess but it's unlikely to cause any problem if you do. If you are reasonably careful, you will not get very much on the tire. If you do get stripper on the tire it seems to make those areas slightly brown and nothing more. A good time to do this work is when you need new tires. Once stripped and polished you might want to have them re-clearcoated. But then again, you might not: you may like the extra sheen bare aluminum offers and the fact that you can now keep your wheels nice always - if you are willing to make the effort.

Removing Clear Coat
 

On the advice of Bob of bcseitz I picked up a can of the paint remover he used on his wheels. The product is made by "mar hyde" and is called Tal-Strip. There are 2 versions - an "extra strength" and the "aircraft coating remover" which is the stronger of the two. The auto store I bought from only had the lower powered version in a spray bomb so I went with that.

Got home and sprayed one wheel. It took all of 10 minutes for this stuff to work. It literally ate the clear coat off the wheel and it was like finding hidden treasure! The finish underneath was perfect and that is without any polishing what so ever!! Can't wait to polish it with a power buffer.

I think someone must have used a polish on these wheels before I bought them as they looked kind of milky, plus clear coat is essentially a coating and like paint will have a less than perfectly smooth surface if it is not buffed out (which I am suer GM does not do).

I plan on keeping my wheels "naked" and just use several coats of wax as the finish is just too good to cover up. Mind you this is easy for me to say as I am going to run the C6 5-spoke wheel which is a breeze to polish - five flat spokes with no crevices to get into. The C5 thin spokes would be easy to maintain as well.

I will post some before and after pic's soon but wanted to thank Bob and c5naples for their great input. If you have less than shiny wheels and are looking to restore them, the mar-hyde product is the way to go!

Jack

i just bought a set of used BBS wheels with black centers and polished clearcosted lips.. i was wanting to strip the clear off teh lips and polished them becasue there are some marks in the clear...if i tape off the tires and the centers will this stripper eat through the tape and get to the center part of my wheels?? the black center are in perfect condition so i dont want to mess them up. its only the lips that are some pits in the clear

nevermind guys. i went ahead and tried it today and it worked great... i taped of the tire and the center black part of the rims. sprayed the stripper and almost right away it started bubbling off... most of it cam right off but there where a few spots that i had to hit with some 1000 grit sand paper... ill be doing the front tomorrow then polishing them bad boys up!!!

anyone know if i desided to clear coat them what is the final step before the clearcoating

wow c5 they are super congrats:cheers: :thumbs:

Dam I gotta stop reading these threads,,now you guys have me thinking about this. The outer wheel still looks good, but after cleaning the crud off the inside 2/3 of the rim the clear looks like it has a rash!! Now another thing to add to the "TO DO" list!!:crazy: :crazy: :thumbs: :thumbs: :cheers:

I'm new to Corvette wheels, are you guys saying that the factory wheels are clearcoated? If I remove the clearcoat,I will have a surface that I can polish? In other words I dont rechrome them?:bigears

All factory C5 wheels were either painted silver or polished and clearcoated. There never were any chrome wheels other than OEM wheels that were later chrome plated.