Well, with snowdays and Presidents' Day, I had plenty of time to play around with the Firebird. I started looking at our newly acquired Formula parts car, and I realized how nice the wheels would look cleaned up. I started by stripping the original clear coat from the entire wheel and began to polish. After seeing a few posts on here with the black Z-R1's, I thought dude, black wheels look sweet! so I first polished the outer lip, and then finished them up by masking the polished part, and spraying the rest with some semi-gloss black paint. There's quite a difference between what I started with, and what I have now. I'll let this wheel sit around for a while, and see if I get sick of it; if not, the other 3 will go through the same process. Let me know what you think. BEFORE.. dirty! AFTER..

a big improvement
my .02
*** luck with the rest of them

Looks good, but not what I was expecting. Almost like your trying to make a cheap GTA wheel. Try polishing the whole rim. You don't see alot like that. Nice work, though.

looks good, big improvement...

so the speed limit was 45 huh? I like how they turned out though

hmmm....brings a new look to the old 20-slot mags. Those were never the most attractive wheels anyway.

Lets see what they look like on a car in the sunlight.

looks cool.. but to me, its a little too black.

i think i would have kept the centercap (if it is a cap.. ?) just polished.

nicer than before, nonetheless. gj.

Wow, that looks great. Wanna do mine next?

That looks pretty neat, I wanna see what it looks like on a car.

Not usually a fan of black rims but it depends on the situation, that looks pretty neat.

Black rims always look good with a silver lip.

I think they look great, personally...well done.

82firebird- hey just wondering what you used to strip the clear coat? What chemical? -89IRO

Looks good :hail: Lets see them ona car in the sunlight.

Very nice work, I think they look much better.
Do you have any pictures with them mounted on the car?

I used Aircraft remover to take the clear coat off. About 2 coats will take all the clear coat off. Works very nicely.


Thanks for the complements guys; I don't have any pics of them the car yet, and won't put them on until its painted. Maybe if it warms up a little, I'll slip them on just for picture-taking sake.

Where do you get aircraft remover and how much does it cost? So you just scrub that stuff on and it takes the clear coat right off? What is the point of the clear coat the GM put on? So after you strip it, you just polish them up an they look great? I hope taking the clear coat off won't damage them in the long run???? -89IRO

lets see some pics of them on the car. nice job cleaning them up though.

GM puts the clearcoat on to protect the metal from salt and other road debris. Once removed and polished, the rim must stay polished with metal polish to keep it's shine, or be re-clearcoated to stay shiney. Wax will help too for bare polished rims. In the long run, if you don't want to work at keeping them spotless and polished at least a couple times a year, or put the work into them to re-clearcoat the rim, it would hurt the rims. It's not to hard, but there is work involved.

BTW, nice job on that rim 82firebird. I've seen a couple of cars do the same thing with body color (seen one red Formula with it done) and look pretty neat as well.

So as long as you keep them polished, that will protect them just as good as the clear coat? Oh and where do you get aircraft remover from? What exactly is the stuff though, I mean what is the chemical called? Is the brand "aircraft?" So what do you do to strip it, just pour the stuff on a rag and wipe it down? -89IRO

Nice job on the wheels. IMO imagining those wheels on a car with that color wouldn't look the greatest though.

yea are you gonna paint the car black too or not? i think they would look good on a black car.

No, it won't protect the aluminum as well as the clear coat did from rocks and such, but a good coat of wax will protect it from tarnishing just from being in the open air.

Some of the BEST clearcoat remover that I've ever used is from Caswell Plating. Works in just a few minutes and strips it clean. Used it on a friend's '82 Mustang GT wheels (the old metric 390mm tri star ones) and had great results.

Its funny, my 87 TA has the same wheels, and I was thinking about doing the same thing until I can get some other wheels. Looks good IMHO.

I have the same wheels, and I wanted the entire wheel polished.

Each slot took me about 2 hours. About a 1/2 hour with a dremel in the slot, then varying degrees of sandpaper. Down to like 1800 grit, or something.

After doing 3 slots, I did an estimate of how long it would take to poilsh JUST THE SLOTS, not including the wheel face, or lip.

There are 64 slots. 64 slots times 2 hours each means that I spend 128 hours ( ) on the slots alone!

I decided it wasn't worth my time, but DAMN did those 2 slots look good. So shiny and smooth.

Can you guys let me know what the advatage is to stripping the wheels? I mean if they aren't getting the protection like they did with the clear coat, what's the point? I mean my IROC wheels are $800 each from GM- I don't really feel like screwing them up. The other day I polished one wheel (with clear-coat on) and man did it make a difference! I just don't see wasting the time on it, and then still not getting the protection. But if I do change my mind, where can I get this "caswel plating?" -89IRO

Nevermind, I found where to get the stuff. -89IRO

Hey, I know it's been a while. Today I got some gel paint stripper from Home Depot. This should strip the clear-coat with no problem (and the skin off of my hands too.) Anyways, my question is if this stuff is going to strip the grey inside parts of my IROC wheels. You know what I'm talking about? I'm not sure if those grey areas are painted. If they are painted, then this stuff is going to remove it too, and I am going to have a much bigger job on my hands. Thanks for the help. -89IRO