They are aluminum, but painted gold... they're a bit dirty almost as if some dirt has gotten under the clearcoat onto the paint... how can i clean them up?

Also, how do you suggest I strip them to bare aluminum and protect them with clear coat. I'm not sure I wanna leave them gold... I might just go with polished aluminum but how do I get it of and then protect them from the elements?

Thanks!

 

Well?

 

Hey

I know I asked this question before, but from what I remeber I had no replys I dont think people know how..
Are the Z rims aluminum??

 

Those wheels are sand cast, and unmachined.... so polishing them is a bigger job than you think.

Here are the steps I took to polish mine:

1. Strip all paint. I used Poly Strippa... just brush it on, them wait 1/2 a day. After that the paint should be soft enough to remove with a wire wheel.

2. Grind off all casting texture. This step is the hardest by far. It is important that you grind it all off or else you will see pits once you start polishing. It is also important to keep moving so you don't wear one area down too much. I use a die grinder with abrasive emery barrels. They come in two grits. You do the whole wheel with coarse, then do the whole wheel with fine until it is smooth.

3. Go through 4 grits of sand paper on the whole wheel. Each time you switch to a different grit, sand in the oposite direction, and continue sanding until you can no longer see the grain from the last grit.

The grades I used were:

-320
-400
-600
-800

4. Now you are finally ready to polish. I find that Eagle 1 aluminum polish works best. You can do it by hand, or use a felt tip on a die grinder or dremel. Work until the polish turns black, then buff it out. Repeat this step until you can see yourself in the wheel.

5. You can now clear coat the wheel... or use some other protective coating, but I chose to leave it unprotected because it looks better. The wheels will be fine unprotected as long as you wash them once a week, and polish them once a year.

 

I used this stuff call airplane remover it is safe for wheels. It comes in a gel for you paint it on and it removes the clear coat and the paint. You could wipe the stuff off with a rag after about 45 min. I bought the stuff at auto zone for under $10. I left mine bare aluminium without the clear coat.

 

I did my rims. I use a diegrinder, da sander, and polishing wheels.

 

damn thats alotta work... and yeah those are the wheels I have.

It would be damn near impossible for someone to sand those in oposite directions..., I could see someone going up and down the "spokes" but side to side?

Perhaps I'll just clean them up and use them as is, and save the polishing part for next winter... I'd love to see pics of these rims in polished form...

 

i have the same gold rims.....infact my car looks indentical to davecamaro. The paint on mine is starting to peel on one wheel. Im kinda getting sick of the gold on my car it just looks kinda blah. What do you think of the gold appearence on yours dave?

 

kidcamarosc

Well,
Im ok with it for now. I really want it painted all black, and have bare metal rims or just paint them white my self. The colours are kinda cool u know, rare and such. But Its just too 80`s or something. haha

BLING BLING!

 

AIRCRAFT REMOVER= 5$ at Wal-Mart, either sand it your self or get them sandblasted for like 60$....then u would hae to worry about whre to take them to get them chromed......

 

Do you want to clean them or polish them?

Its my opinion that polished stock rims look like ***. What I would do if I had a set of stock rims that looked like *** that I wanted to spice up, is simple... I'd get a chemical stripper and remove the clearcoat and paint. Then once they were clean, I'd repaint them as the factory did and reclearcoat them.

 

Drew, I feel the exact opposite... I like polished stock rims...

The only problem with repainting my rims gold, is that I don't have the gold ground effects to go with them.

Unless someone wants to give me their gold ones? Or perhaps let them go for rediculusly cheap?

I think I'll strip them and then clean them up a little with some abrasive cleaner and then re clearcoat them again... or perhaps I'll find a place that will sandblast them... Who would do that?

What should I use to reclearcoat them? Just spray can clear coat?
Should I chemically strip both the front and back of the rims and re clear them? or just the front? Should I dismount the tires first?