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Mothers and Mag Wheels go together

6K views 29 replies 14 participants last post by  HKDUP87 
#1 · (Edited)
O.k. it was time to try and clean up my mag wheels so I went out to try and buy a cloth ball for polishing and they don't exist in stores or detail supply shops only online. I used my drill with some buffing pads and Mothers Aluminum polish and this is what came out. It's still not the way I want them to look but they came out pretty nice.


Before




First round







done for now will try another way to get it perfect.













 
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#3 ·
I can't get a mirrored shine it's blurred and watching YouTube I should be able to. If not I may take them to Original Wheels down here and have them refinished .
.:dontknow::dontknow:

Thanks
 
#5 ·
Did you try Harbor Freight for a cloth ball ? I found one there (cone shaped) works great om my polished intake manifold. If I remember the had a few different shapes and sizes.
That wheel and tire combo looks great... Nice choice
 
#7 ·
Yea I got a couple of the cones but I want one that has strips of cloth to beat the living crap out of it. You need a long shaft that's padded so you don't scratch anything. Maybe these rim's have a coating on them I can't tell. I was thinking about some buffing compound but I think Original Wheels may only charge like $40.00 or $50.00 ea. to refinish them like new and get all the little pits out at the same time. I'm only going to use these in the summer to keep them nice and low maintenance by swapping the Iroc's I also keep the extra set in my spare bedroom parts dept. :poke:



Elly Girl Did you take them off the truck to do the cleaning?


I'm giving you a pass on this question because your " PLUM CRAZY PURPLE IN LOVE" No I only took them off to take the pictures.:poke::texas:
 
#10 ·
That's true I have plenty of gray.:beer: I saw on YouTube to seal them use bees wax???
 
#12 ·
The metal does look scuffed up close, you could try a little 2000 grit wetsanding on a section & see if that polishes back a little smoother.If your're fine polishing over fine scratches with a non agressive cleaner, it may take forever to get them like mirror. Last year I tried white diamond polish from advanced auto parts on my custom aluminum air scoop I made & it was faster at getting me to the final shine. Worked faster than anything on old diamond plate, but was pretty messy for my aluminum engine parts that weren't fully polished. Every product has it's good & bad points.

At least aluminum is pretty thick compared to clearcoat, so you can experiment all you want with it.:beer:
 
#13 ·
How about Mcquire's 105 cutting compound with a cloth buffing wheel or rubbing compound? I tried wet sanding a small spot on the back with 2000 and it scratched or scuffed it so it quit. I know you have to do that but I'm still not confident enough. I have an extra two of the same rims and tires that came with the others so maybe today I will try the wet sanding. :dontknow:
 
#17 ·
I don't know I only put ice and salt in my Salty Dogs and never tried salt on my Snow Cones:dontknow::dontknow:
 
#18 · (Edited)
I went to Harbor Frt. and got some buffing cones, disc, pads, and a white buffing compound bar for alum. then I went to Home Depot to get a threaded rod and threaded coupling to make a shaft so I can use the drill and not hit the drill on the rims. I tried the 0000 steel wool on the back and it scuffed it up so I stopped. I have an extra set of mags as spares so I'm going full force on them and try the compound first.

One of the other members posted a thread o WD40 that stuff works I had some overspray on one of my sills and it took off the paint with no effort so I put some on one rim and it took all the surface film off just by wiping it on. I can tell this is going to be a slick and easy way to get stubborn hard to clean and hard to get to items anywhere on my truck and under the hood . :nanawrench::nanawrench:

One other thing the WD40 took all the black stuff out of the pitted holes in the rim with just a wipe that was nice no rubbing.

Once I find the thread whoever posted WD40 deserves a REP!!!!!!!! ON THIS FIND IT CLEANS AWHSOME SO YOU CAN USE IT ON THE ENTIRE TRUCK CAN'T HURT ANYTHING BUT I DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD US IT ON CARPET. JUST READ THE CAN:poke::You_Rock:
 
#19 ·
#20 ·
JUST SAW THIS.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WD40 is conductive, flammable, and it dissolves plastics if left on. Found the first and last by accident, have yet to prove the flammable part though.

PFlo/Paul
__________________
 
#21 · (Edited)
On wd-40, I repair home sliding glass doors & it RUINS the fuzzy & vinyl weatherstrips & collects dirt , which can do more harm than good. It ain't for everything. It can be a useful product though in aluminum cutting, sanding & even cleanup.

On metal buffing, stick to metal buffing products,not the paint products. IF your surface is rough,Then some type of sanding can benefit in the final result, BUT it will need to be buffed with compound to progressively get rid of the scratches. it's up to you how agressive you think you need to start with a buffing project, but not agresive enough to start just wastes time in the long run. If you think 2000 grit is too rough, try rubbing the paper together to (kill) some of the grit, which will make it finer. I usually start with tripoli brown compound, then white, then metal polishes. I personally wouldn't rub steel wool on aluminum, fragments of steel could embed in the soft metal.

There are 2 schools of thought on bringing totally dull aluminum to a polish. One is stopping at a rougher sandpaper grit & going to brown, then white polish. The other line of thought is sanding much finer , then going to a liquid metal polish. Both methods can get you there, it's all about time spent & the correct rougher to progressively finer steps. As opposed to paint, with a thick metal wheel, you can sand harshly if needed (as in getting rid of a deep scratch) & not run out of material, so don't be scrared to ruin it.It'll just take longer to get back to smooth.Once you achieve a truely smooth finish , you can stick with the least agressive products, Mothers billet polish being the finest.

I still recommend you give the white diamond polish a try,it has a lot of cleaning solvent in it. I had a hard time getting a final shine on my hand fabbed air intake, which started as SCRAP metal. If this doesn't inspire you , I don't know what will.
 
#23 ·
I heard their junk and fall apart Oreilly's has them on sale . I wanted a cloth one but I can only find them online.
Thanks




jlcustomz

I didn't see your post first but last night I got the brown and white compound bars but first I cleaned a rim with WD40 then washed it off and then used 0000 steel wool that works getting the scratches and anything else off and looks 90% better with no effort so far. Next I will polish it with some 205 polish and see what I get.:nanawrench::yell:

Thanks
 
#24 ·
I will try some bullet polish also. If that doesn't bring it out then I think I will call Original Wheels down here and see how much it would be to have them refinished can't be much and that's all they do. I like to do it myself first to get the satisfaction knowing I can do it

Here's my test wheel you can tell the difference so far from the bottom of the rim I did and the dull center so it works and I will start on the ones that are on the truck now instead of wasting time on this one.




.:beer::beer:
 
#26 ·
Flitz has a 3 different size cloth balls..I'm waiting on the 5" one now along with the hard to get Flitz metal polish...There's a video on utube that shows how well they work.I'll let you know...


I have one coming orange with a long shaft. $34.00:beer:
 
#27 ·
i kind of became a pro at shining all things from brass buckles to shoes to cloth belts when i was at a military college. after shining pretty much anything there was always the chance that upperclassmen might take your belt buckle and scratch it up on concrete just to make you re do it. we would always just work our way from 800 to 2000 grit, then use a rubbing compound called "Blue Magic"(it is by far the best thing ive ever used for metal polishing) under a piece of printer paper, then blue magic with a good quality shine cloth, rinse and repeat. but naturally any protective coating is gone after this. i used a dremel with a polishing pad a few times as well but couldnt get as good of a result, probably just bc if you got anything on the pad it would scuff your surface. all in all BLUE MAGIC AND ELBOW GREASE
 
#30 ·
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