My '87 IROC wheels are straight, and w/o nicks/gouges/scratches, but I've been trying to strip them down to bare metal. I bought all of the fancy ($$$) polishing supplies from Eastwood Co. to polish them to an all-polished aluminum look, as I've seen done to other similar wheels. But - I can't get the paint off. I've tried all sorts of paint strippers - even some designated as "aircraft strength" - without much luck.

(Unfortunately, some of the polishing compound supplies that I bought from Eastwood have now hardened and are no longer usable - but that's another story...)

Anybody know if the IROC wheels were powdercoated at the factory (that's all I can dream up), and if so, how do you get this stuff off besides sandblasting - which is not an option since I'm trying to polish them.

I thought dipping them in a mild acid solution...

Anybody had any experience with this before?

 

it says on the aircraft stripper to leave it on for like 15 mins, right? well that never worked for me. put it on, leave them in trash bags for the better part of the day, come back and wash them off. itll strip them.

 

Paint stripper worked well for mine. I used the gel type stripper. I had to do it about 3-4 times to get all the paint off though.

 

9$ aircraft stripper from pep boys for about 15 minutes, 3-4 coats did it for me.

 

Thanks guys - I'll try (again) & let you know how they come out.

 

i got just use the industrial strength gel stuff from Lowes. 9 applications and a scrub finally got it all off.

 

Sandpaper works really well for removing the clearcoat. Thats what i used on mine.

 

I have mine own media blasting cabinet in my garage, I found that plastic blasting works well.

 

We have a stripper at my powder shop called methylene chloride at work and thats what we get powdercoating off with. This stuff melts latex gloves in a minute. Powder is a pain to get off if a good job was done but this stuff always gets it off (sometimes longer for a better job)