hey everyone,
ive got a 91 rs with factory wheels. I was told i could sand all the paint off them and polish the aluminum with mothers aluminum polish. I wanted to see if any of you have done this, and if you might have any pictures that i could see.
Thanks

 

you can prolly use the search and find alot of stuff on this topic. Ill try and help ya out as much as i can. Ive got a set of 89 formula deep dish wheels that i polished all by hand. I will admit it is a real pain doing it....but when you get all done....its well worth it. Trust me. I started with some aircraft stripper(paint stripper) and took all the clear coat off. Then started at 180 grit sand paper. I went on and off with wet sanding and dry sanding. I thought that the wet sanding had more of an effect then the dry but you can try and see what you think. Anyways, after the 180 then i went through the grits..220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and then finished at 2000. After that, take a rag or something and whip the rim clean. Now, ive used mothers before and dont get my wrong the stuff works great but someone gave me a hint on here to try some stuff called "blue magic". So i did and .... wow......what a difference. You can really see a shine. Hope this helps you out somewhat. Here are some pics of my results. The pics are dark so you can really get the real shine coming from the rim but believe me i think they came out real nice.

 

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The best way to get a real good polish is by using polishing wheels and greases. Hand sanding will give you an ok finish but with polishing wheels and greases you can get a mirror finish out of the alluminum. I do all my polishing with the wheels and grease.

 

My formula wheels look similar to his above(polished), but i would like them to shine like yours, and tips, or steps to accomplish that?

 

I cant give out my secrets but, plan on spending a wad of cash getting all the equiptment you will need.
Polishing wheels 3 different kinds you need
Polishing grease 3 different kinds you need
Air compressor
Da sander
Glue on the back da sanding pads, need both 180,320 grit paper
Die grinder
Need 180,400 grit strait sanding drums, and also need tapered drums
And the numerous wheels you will use in polishing things.
And then learning how to polish very good, it didnt happen to me overnight. It took me 5 months to get my techniques down to make a mirror shine on alluminum.

 

Thanks for your help. that pretty much tells me what i need to know. Except the part where you talked about greases. What do you have to do with that, and what kind of grease do you use. thanks for all your alls help.

 

I dont know about greases? , but i have used buffing wheels and different compounds to do polishing, you should check this site out. http://www.gmtips.com/3rd-degree/dox...m/pol-plen.htm , that shoud give you lots of info.

Kevin

 

old pic, i know

 

By greases he means buffing compounds. Where the heck did u come up with grease anyway?? Anyway you can get the compounds from Eastwood.com or from your local Ace hardware. As for the procedure, 250grit paper dry, 320 grit wet, 400 grit wet, tripoli buffing compound on a hard wheel followed by white rouge with a medium/soft wheel. good luck

 

Actually, he's right. They usually call 80-400 grit compounds... grease.

While you have your other compounds such as white rouge and tripolio.

 

I've always called the compounds grease. When you hit it up against a spining polishing wheel what happens. Put your part or something just under the wheel and compound while putting the bar of compound to the wheel and you get melted compound which looks like grease.

 

You can search for my polished wheels as well on here.

 

85_ZED28


HOW DID YOU DO THAT TO YOUR RIMS?