I was wondering if you could tell me what process to polish the rims. I really wanna get mine done cuz the clear coat is all f***ed up. So i was just wondering what i need to do from start to finish. I think i'm gonna go withouth the painting though.

 

hey try the search button, theres a wealth of posts out there answering your question, there's also a couple sites sorry i can't remember offhand but its easy enough finding it

 

Glad to see that I'm not the only one pushing the "use the search button" issue on everyone

 

use some aircraft paint remover to get the clear coat totally off. Then its gravy to polish the wheels. Don't use latex gloves because the paint remover will eat right through it.

 

Stripping Clear Coat:
First I clean the wheels with grease lightning to get of all of the
brake dust and road grime off of them.
Dry them all thoroughly or the paint stripper will not work as well.
I used Tal-Strip, but aircraft stripper is the same stuff. I used the
brush on kind. Brush a generous amount on and let it set for 15
minutes. (Wear gloves and be careful not to get it on yourself
because it will burn). After 15 minutes you should see the paint
and clear coat bubbling, take a plastic/teflon scraper and scrape away the loose paint. Repeat until all of the clear coat an paint is
removed. If you do not want to repaint the inserts tape them
off before hand and try not to get any stripper on them.

Sanding:
Next is the sanding , and it takes awhile!!! I did all wet sanding
by hand, with a sanding block. Wet sand with 220 grit to get rid of
the machining marks and the surface, this takes the most time. Once all of the marks have been removed move up to the 320 grit.
I suggest doing this in a well lit area, since I wet sanded until all of
the scratches from the previous paper were no longer visible.
Repeat this process with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit
papers. Clean the wheels with some Eagle One Aluminum Wheel cleaner,
to remove any remaining grit from the surface.

Preparing for Paint:
After this I taped of the sanded surfaces for painting. I prepared
the inserts by cleaning with some wax and grease remover and
then let them dry over night.

Painting:
First I sprayed two coats of self etching primer. Then two coats of
base color, and finally the two coats of clear.

Final Sanding and Polishing:
After the paint had set I removed the tape and looked for any over
spray. I took 2000 grit and wet sanded the entire wheel to remove
any adhesive and overspray. I then used a super soft terry cloth
applicator pad and polished the aluminum using Mothers aluminum
polish. I finished by buffing to a shine using a flannel towel.

This process took me a long time but I am very happy with the
results. I would have done it as a winter project, but since the car
is in the garage getting drivetrain upgrades I did it now. There
are alot of other techniques on this board that get very good
results, and probably in less time, so I would definately do a search. Good luck with the wheels.

I almost forgot, but do the same sanding and polishing process on
the trim ring of the center caps on 91-92 z28 rims. I will include
some of the pics that I have uploaded of my process.

 

After stripping the clear coat:

 

After sanding and polishing:

 

After painting and repolishing:

 

Another:

 

Last one of paint:

 

I did my first two rims by hand using all those sanding steps, but I just found out it doesn't have to take that long. Buy some buffing wheels and compounds, and you can do your wheels, plenum, runners, and more much quicker.

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=118968

 

Nice work Nazzz28! I like these post about polishing cause you see the steps and pic that others went throught to make it look that nice. Anybody else got step by step pix of the before and after shoots? If I can find it I have a pix of the stripper melting the clear coat away. Thats some nasty stuff man.

 

Will the paint stripper remove the grey parts on my IROC wheels? I'm not sure if that is paint. Because if it does remove these parts, I am in for a lot of work. I just want it to remove the clear coat. -89IRO

 

i don't think thats paint in between the "veins" of iroc wheels and its going to be a real pain in the **** to polish those parts. Best bet would be to mask off the rest of the rim and paint those veins, it'll make it look 100x better than leaving them as is. So to answer your question you should be fine with just using a clear coat remover and not having to worry about the veins of the rim.

 

And what about the larger portions that are also grey (same color as the veins)?? -89IRO

 

same deal, i don't think those are painted, but rather just the color of the aluminum itself. Typically people just polish the spokes, and paint everything else which includes the veins and the spaces in between the spokes. IMO this helps put the polished parts into the foreground, and if you were to polish those spaces between the spokes it wouldn't jump out at you as much but thats just my opinion. I say strip the whole rim, polish the spokes, tape off the spokes and lip of the rim and spray the veins and spaces in bw the spokes with a gray or a black to help accent the polished portions.

 

I think what I am going to do is just strip the whole wheel, and then just sand and polish the whole thing. Are you sure that after stripping, the grey portions will remain grey? What does everybody else think? I'll just polish the whole thing and leave it at that. I don't have the time nor attention span to carefully mask the whole rim off and paint it. I think it will look bad-*** enough if I just strip all the old, crappy clear-coat off, then polish them. -89IRO

 

my iroc rims are painted grey in the lower parts and the viens. I put alittle on to see what was there and under it was a grey pited looking rim...its kind of nice looking color. Have fun polishing that part hahahahaha its rough as hell....yould be there for years unless you had a detal sander or even a drelel tool would take you forever to flaten out the insides I say paint them black. Thant what im going to do.

 

 

What would happen if I stripped all the clear off the wheel and just used my Dremel with a good polishing compound, painted and re-cleared?
Nazzz28:
Awesome job man! What kind of paint did you use on your wheels and where did you get it?

 

I used an argent metallic that was used on early 90's chevy
trucks. It was mixed at my uncles body shop. We primered with
two coats of self etching primer, then 2-3 coats of color, and two
coats of clear. Hope that this helps, I sold the wheels about
three months ago and have pics of the replacements in a current
thread.