Polishing wheels

[nav786]

Is it possible to polish the lips, and dish of a wheel yourself or is there special tools involved?

If you can, can someone tell me what i need and how to do it

[SHAZ325iSPORT]

i use a cream called AUTOSUL,and i either use a dremil or by hand but obviously doesnt come up that good by hand.

[mrLEE30]

Mate depending on how bad the wheels are it can take ages.

i did my BBS splitties and gave up after the first one, proceedure for old wheels is this

1. clean them with soap/water
2. clean em again with a dishbrush
3. clean em again with wheel cleaner (i used autoglym stuff)
4. get wet 800 and 1000 sand paper and begin sanding lightly, the idea is to remove the old lacqure, the oxidised layer and then take away the layer of metal around deep pits and scratches. you will need to spend about and hour a wheel at this stage and keep the paper wet, cleaning the wheel with wheel cleaner/saop water every 5-10mins. work away a bit extra around heavily scratched areas.
5. at this stage the aliminium will be scratched to hell from all the sanding, so now you need to begin polishing out the sandpaper scratches.
If you can find in UK 2000 grade paper this speeds up the process but not sure how available it is there. otherwise get a drill and a polishing head (it looks like a stiff cotton wheel about 6inch in diameter and get a small on about 2 inch in diameter. get some aluminium/metal polishing paste such as AUTOSOL. then begin polishing using the drill/polishing head and you will begin to smooth out the swirls and scratches you made with the sandpaper. keep cleaning the wheel with water regularily. again this stage takes 1-4 hours. note if you are going to use a dremmel be carfeful as they are a high speed polishing tool and can burn the aluminium, this can be as hard to polish out again as a scratch. time is the only solution by using a medium/ fast drill and polishing head. Keep appliying a good amount of paste and using the polishing wheel work the paste around the rim, dont stop in one place too long, rather do a six x six inch area then move on overlapping slightly.
6. now the aluminium should look much better, and maybe beginning to shine and bit. now take fine grade polishing paste (the kind you use on paintwork polishing) and some cotton wool. and continiue polishing the metal in a circular motion. again time is the key and this stage can take anywhere up to 6 hours for a mirror finish. get in front of the telly and polish away my son, and thank the lord you dont have stainless steel wheels! i polished a piece of stainless steel in the same manner for my boats dashboard, it took me three days of four to five hours a day, but finish was mirror like!!

TIP... do each stage to all four wheels at a time...i.e do the first snadpaper stage to all the wheels, then polish all the wheels, then finish all the wheels other wise as your soul becomes destoyed when you realise howlong it takes you will rush the second and third wheel and your forth wheel will look turd

Trust me it will come up real nice if you take your time, but your hands and arms will ache and it will pi55 you right off!!

heres one i did earlier (but gave up and sent to a professional, for the price its worth it!!)

as i got em, scratched, dirty, brake dust etc etc the closer one is cleaned with autoglym cleaner only.




a bit more cleaning and some polishing





gave up after five hours and went to a pro..






mrlee

[nav786]

Cheers guys,

Lee- I think you have persuaded me to just pay and get them done

[bootyman]

Nav i think you're better off getting them done mate. I took my splitties to Style Dynamix round the corner from you and the polished them, plus put them back together for me for 420 for all 4 wheels. Sounds a lot, but you try do that amount of work and it will take you many an hours, not to mention sore fingers and they still wont look that good, cause you can never polish them like a pro with the correct machines can

[nav786]

cheers ben, didnt know style dynamix do them. Will find out how much they will do just lips for

[Steviec]

My bro works in a tyre shop so he just put his wheels on the balencing machine and used some sandpaper.
Wheel spins, hold paper still = shiney part of wheel!

Ok, maybe not very professional, but it looked pretty good.

[Ziggy]

IIRC, it was Argos who did the same thing, just by jacking the back of the car up!

[mrLEE30]

Fact # 9 if David Hasselhoff had a 325ix he could have jacked all four wheels up and done the lot.

[320Touring]

Fact # 9 if David Hasselhoff had a 325ix he could have jacked all four wheels up and done the lot.

ROLF

[Ziggy]

Think I'll steal that!

[Ziggy]

Had to change it a bit so it made sense... ok?!

[mrLEE30]

Yes thats ok, steal away mate!!

by the way, been out of blighty for a while so what does LOL and ROFL mean??

took me a while to figure out IIRC!!! (were a bit slow round these parts)

mrlee

[Ziggy]

Laugh(/Laughs/Laughing) Out Loud
Rolling On Floor Laughing

[320Touring]

Laugh(/Laughs/Laughing) Out Loud
Rolling On Floor Laughing

ROLF is a tribute to laughing like the great man himself

[mrLEE30]

Aha!!! might start using that one now!!

cheers!

mrlee