was wondering how to polish my stock 92RS rims, also does anyone else get alot of brke dust coming onto the front two wheels? everytime i wash my car wich is about 2 times a week there is a lot of brake dust around the rim, and i mean alot, it make the front two wheels almost look like carbon clolered rims.

 

I used to just get a crappy rag and wet it and wipe the brake dust off the fronts once a week, LOL.

If you mean REALLY polish it, you're gonna have to take them off the car, strip the clearcoat off of them, sand out all the machining grooves with low grit (150 or so) sandpaper and put some elbow grease into it, working up from 150 grit. Istopped at 600 grit, but a lot of people go higher I think. After that you use aluminum/mag wheel polish to shine it up real good.


The wheels on my car are as clean as they'll get.

 

ok thanks, how would i strip the clear coat? i'm only 16 and not mechanic so i have no idea on were to start. Do i strip the coat off just by wet sanding it, and then once thats done just keep wet sanding then? Yea, i'll problly take em off since i live in MN and won't drive it in the winter and just work onem then. what are disadvantages to it?? Rusting possably?

 

You'll have to buy paint stripper. I got a kind in a rattle can and a gel kind... both worked okay, neither got rid of the stubborn paint chunks. I had to sand them off by hand.

That paint stripper will F' you up too, make sure you don't breathe too much of it in and buy some chemical gloves so you dont burn your skin.

It's a lot of work, just takes some patience and perseverence. They'll only look as good as the amount of work you put into them. And make sure you start at a low grit and slowly work your way up to higher grits in smallish increments. You dont need any special tools except a sanding block, gloves, and paint stripper.

You'll have to repolish them (with wheel polish, not a big deal) regularly because the aluminum will oxidize over time without clear on it. But if you maintain them it will be fine.



This is what mine looked like after 150 grit (I decided to continue with that for a while longer to get rid of the machining grooves completely). ALl the leftover red I had to sand out by hand. Pain in the butt, but they look good...

The smudges are fingerprints, not flaws in the finish.

 

allright thanks, those look really good. few more questions though. So i'm suppose to use like a belt sander on them? And do i have to take the tires off, cause it seems if i do it'll be a pain in butt to get'm off and on. Sorry bout so many questions, just want to do some reserch befoer i start.
Thanks.

 

to do camaro rims like that just do the beads like I did on my car 80/180/400/600wet. ...... then use a palm sander on the flat surface.

 

Nope, good old-fashioned elbow grease and hard work. Get a sanding block and get used to wet sanding.

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I went 150-240-320-400-600 grit.

Trust me, it's not a 30 minute job. I think I have about 20 hours invested into those two.

Get ALL those machining grooves out (Go look closely at your wheels and you'll see the lines that go around it) and it takes a while to do. When it's as smooth as you're going to get it with that grit, you bump it up. But remember, you gotta make it look worsebefore it looks better. The longer you spend with the heavy grits the less work you're going to have to put in on the finer grits.


This is after 150 grit, and I wasn't done yet either.

I went back and 150'd it at least another hour per wheel to get all those machine grooves out. The more time you spend sanding, the better it's going to look when you're done.