ok i finally found out how to attach an image and here are two of my rims.even though they look 100% better in person

 

heres the other one

 

Man those rims look great!!! :hail:

Can ya post the procedure you used please, very interested in doing this, please give details, tools used etc... Thanks a lot.

 

 

IM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY RUINED RIMS!!! JUST TO STATE THAT
first: i followed the procedure for stripping the clearcoat off of your iroc rims in the tech articles

second: you will see small machined lines that kind of make big circles around the tire. i went and got some fine probably about 800 grit dry sandpaper. i ssanded with this until there were no more machine lines left.

third: i got some 1000 grit wet sand paper and sanded untill there were no machine lines visible.

fourth: same as the last one but i used 1500 wetsand

next: i went back to 1000 grit and roughed it up again just to be sure i got most of the lines off

next i went back to 1500 grit untill all lines are gone

finally i wetsanded for about 10 mins with a 2000 grit paper when i was done with this i let the wheel dry really well because it is a pain in the neck to polish if it not completely dry

then i added mothers mag and aluminum polish about 3 or 4 times without the machined lines in the wheel it makes it about 100 times easier to remove the black polish residue from the wheel after adding the polish i used an SOS pad to get the polish off of my tire. im probably goin to get my wheels and tires rebalanced because im not sure if this might throw off the balancing at all because i removed quite a bit of clear coat
feel free to make any questions or coments.

 

Good Job!!....IM working on my runners right now there turning out pretty good so far.

Have them put the weights on the inside of the rim if you get them rebalanced.

 

yea i am definately getting them statically balanced

 

how long did it take you to do each rim?

 

Looks real good You said it took about 5hrs to do each rim in the other thread IIRC.
I cant wait to get my 88 Irocs in I'm gonna polish everything on the face of the rim, including the 2 lines in each spoke

 

I like it, those will look nice in a bird

 

notice the pontiac center caps here is a pic of the car before the rims were polished. and also the car is lowered 2 inches and has the WS6 style ram air hood

 

ok here is it

 

sweet


i might have to go do that to my iroc rims, they look so much better with them polished

 

IROC rims look pretty good on Birds. Are you keeping the gold accents?

 

yea i think i am keeping the gold on them just to be different. i ordered the gold ram air decals to go on the hood that i bought a few days ago and i will probably put a big gold bird in the back windowif not i will use my extra can of paint and have the body shp shoot them red in the accents

 

Nice job. I like those alot

 

just wondering... do you have a slight haziness, or cloudiness to the surface? I was doing a similar process to my plenum and runners, I was getting a good shine but not the mirror finish i was hoping for... I ended up using a $10 harbor freight (the real, real, real cheap tool store around here) buffing kit, and a few cheap drills(all my corded drills heated up too badly). I got really good results on my runners but i'm still getting a bit, but less cloudiness on the plenum.

 

at first they were cloudy but once i polished them about twice all the cloudiness went away . what kind of polish are you using?

 

Where did you get the Pontiac center caps?

 

they are the center caps that are used in the new gran prixs and t/a

 

i used blue magic chrome/aluminum polish. It wasn't so much cloudiness, but lack of clarity, i got a good shine but not the mirror finish that i was wanting.

here just got done making a page

http://www.cardomain.com/member_page...=372439&page=2

The plenum extension is using the WS/P and its got a good finish but the runners are buffed and a polished.

 

how many grit did you say you sanded with again? maybe take the sanding a few steps finer and it will remove a few more scratches then try the buffing kit to clean them up.

 

I did this just the other day, notice I got the lines of the plenum too
I dont see how you guys can stand the hand polishing method, i've tried it once but it wasnt fun at all. I couldnt sand the lines so I used my sisal wheels to sorta smooth out the casting until it was all gone then polised it out with sewn cloth wheels. I started out with 180grit and then used 320 with a Dual Action Sander and started using my polishing wheels. Thats one of the good thing about using machines and polishing wheels, you can use a lower grit and get one heck of a finish. All in all polishing the entire plenum took about an hour and a half. Still with all forms of polishing it still comes down to the skills and determination of the polisher to finish the project.