polishing your alluminum/magnesium wheels

Heres something you should try if you need to polish your mags.

I spent the $90 on all the crap, the superduty wax, the pollishing tools. the rubing compounds. That process takes about an hour a wheel and though I have done it many times befor, I have just never been all that happy with the results.



Sure the wheels get shiny and clean but they just never get that whiter then Casper look that new wheels have out of the box.



Well I discovered the secret today. After trying to polish the first wheel and not being happy with it I decided I would wash off all the wax and polish right down to the alluminum and start again. I figured my wool buffing wheel needed cleaning at the same time. So I poared "fantastic" out of my 1 gallon jug right into the wool pad and used that to scrub the wheel.

Well that fantastic on the buffing pad lathered up into a thick foam so much so that I coldn't see the wheel, so I just did the whoile wheel. I had to use the garden hose to rinse it all off and I couldn't believe my eyes. The wheel was soo brite it was like a mirror finish and silver-white like new alluminum.

The foamed fantastic acted like a cleaning lubricant and the wool polished the wheel.



The pictures just don't do it justice. But If you look into the reflection on the left of each wheel inthe two individual pictures, you can see the biege metal building towering up to the sky. On the polished wheel is a bit blured, on the fantastic wheel its almost a mirror image.

Belive me to see them in person its a huge difference.



The fantastic wheel is on the right.


By the way, I didnt bother polishing the other three wheels, they all came out the same with the fantastic. I used 1/2 gallon of fantastic $2 worth to do four wheels.

M1D

Might be a dumb? but did you use the buffing wheel on the buffer or did you just soak it in "Fantastic" and do it by hand?

I'm too much of a lazy ass to do them by hand.
I used the wool buffing wheel on the grinder, A little high speed for buffing and polishing paint but ok for clean metals.

As I said I pored the fantastic ( about 4 oz right on the nut in the middle) onto the that "wet"wool buffing wheel you see and went at it. And I did the same with the smaller one on the drill for in the wholes. With both machines , the fantastic quickly lathered up into a thick foam. It is the speed of the machines that made it wip into a lather about like whipping cream. It only took about 5 minutues to do each wheel. Just don't let it dry, one I had to add a little more fantastic. Then I flipped the wheel over and did the painted inside, all the brake dust and road grime came right off with the fantastic. It was awsome! None of it was done by hand, 5 minutes!! done!

My wheels were in fairly good shape allready, I had polished them last year and the year before using the rubbing compound and same machines. They were quite bad when I bought the van.

Before any buffing they looked like this, after buffing with rubbing compound they looked like the first picture.




Now


M1D

One more tip:

before starting with compound or wax or anything, spray the tires with that tire rejuvinator or armourall or whatever and rub it in. Then wipe the exccess off the rim . That will prvent the tires from having wax stains as the splash wont stick on the rubber.

If you ever got wax or rubbing compound onto dry rubber or black plastic and tryed to clean it out afterwards you know what I am talking about.

M1D

dam nice, thanks for the tip......

Very nice!!

Wonder if this would work on chrome rims also???? I also hate cleaning rims

Great timing Michel !

I just got a set of "Weld" wheels and will try the Fantastic & Woolie later today.

Dan

Dan,your welds look like they are in nice shape,My wifes daily driver for 9 years (years ago ) was a 79 2wheel drive big block suburban and I had welds on it . I used heavy metal liquid wheel polish once every 6 months on it. I spent 6 minutes per wheel polishing them (with a rag) and they allways looked new. Bill

Tried the Fantastic. Didn't work very well on these. Went and got some "Mother's" Aluminum polish and did one wheel, it looks much better. Will try some Diamond plate polish I have tomorrow and see what happens...

Dan

Would that work on my dog dish hubcaps? They're aluminum and I can't seem to polish them.

I tried the fantastic with poor results. Mothers worked much better

cool I'll try that. Not sure if you have any stock hubcaps on your vans, but do you know if they would work on them?

I will post the name of the aluminum cleaner/polish that I use when I get back out to my shop. Best cleaner/polish that I have found . I use it to polish on vintage motorcycles everyday.

Eco
http://www.retro-cycles.com

Heres an older product from the 50's = Semichrome polish- motorcycle shops sold this and was a small tube & worked great-might look 4 it

Check it out. Green Magic Plus.

http://www.greenmagicplus.com

That's some good stuff!

Looks good but their not showing how much elbow greese is required to get that polish. Thats the important part.
There are lots of products that polish but they all take hours of hard work to get a shine.

M1D

Put a drop or 2 on a clean cloth, rub until the corrosion(aluminum) turns black, wipe it off. Before you know it, you are looking in a mirror.

Eco

Here is a page that covers it from one perspective.
The restoration is about 2/3rds down.
http://www.roadsters.com/wheels/
I prefer to completely clean the wheel as much as possible, then if you want a polished finish, use polish and any tools you have that can get into the various areas. Always finish with an overall rub out by hand.

Heres a fix for those alunimum wheels or anything alunimum. Get a chemical from the power washer sellers - commercial - Thats called aan =Acidize solution cleaner. It can be under different names - can be used with a spray bottle or thru a power washer. It is actually a acid solution that removes all the dull corosion on alunimum parts. Made specifically for alunimum large semi trailers. when used spray on = wait a little & spray off - the end result is exactly like when the alunimum was new -bright & shiny. Most sell by gallon or 5 gall & even in 55gall drums- a gallon will last a long time .=Happy Vannin

Okie-Dokiee...

I've tried most all the others. Most turned out to be just "Snake Oil" With very limited success.....

Lets see if I can find some "Acidize solution cleaner" and will let you know how it works.

Yeah, at this point I'll try about anything!!!

Id try that acid stuff ona spare rim first, I have used it on fuel tanks, clean yes,, shiny maybe not.

Joe, that's a real good idea. I pulled out the "test rim" earlier. Can't seem to find it anywhere..

Matt, Any suggestions on where to find this aan =Acidize solution cleaner stuff?

That "acidize" stuff is used at truck washes and is generically called brightener or acid wash..... Use rubber gloves when handling and be aware that it can dry in a cloudy streaky finish and require a lot of polishing to fix..... turns the aluminum white.... I wouldnt use the stuff myself, EVER!
The Fantastik thing is intriguing: I'm wondering if it's chemically similar to 409, Bleche White, or Purple Power (?) and I'm also wondering if the buff wheel had residual polishing compound on it and maybe the  fantastik was releasing and using old compound similar to what would happen if you added diesel fuel to a wheel that had lots of blackened compound on it..... Really, good old fashion red and white compounds are great for polishing wheels as long as they aren't clear coated......My 2001 Astro van wheels had a factory clear coat that got looking really funky and after stripping with acetone, those wheels look polished!

Im betting that he had a well used buffing pad when he used the fantastic. The cleaner wet the old compounds in the wool and that's what did the actual polishing. Not the fantastic its self