Eagel aluminum Help

[GRAHAM88]

I have Eagle aluminum Rims and they dont look like they should..
How and waht should I do ??
Power polisher?? I have tried Mothers aluminum polish and it works but the rims are so bad that It tale forever to just see a shine;
After I do get a mirror Finnish HOW DO I keep it that way?
Can you clear coat them??The first Photo is not my rims ..but how I want them to look!!


[ May 06, 2004, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: GRAHAM88 ]

[Formula]

I get Mothers aluminum polish and after about 4 hours they look like that. I usually do it about once a month and just keep them clean and they stay blinging

[GRAHAM88]

I get Mothers aluminum polish and after about 4 hours they look like that. I usually do it about once a month and just keep them clean and they stay blinging

But do you use any Power stuff or just by hand??

[ May 06, 2004, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: Loochy88 ]

[Loochy88]

Be sure they are ALUMINUM and not chrome before trying this:

if they look really bad get some high grit sandpaper.... start with 600 grit, then 1000, then 1500, then 2000. you need to sand them very well or they wont look good. when you have sanded them all the way back to 2000 and they seem to be very smooth go over them with mother's polish again. this will of course take a long time, but its worth it.

Originally posted by GRAHAM88:

But do you use any Power stuff or just by hand??

no reason to use any power stuff on your wheels.

[GRAHAM88]

I guess my question is.
I used mother's polish and a towel, it took forever and still did not look like it should. And how do you get it to the cracks?
If I used a small poewer polisher would it be a bad thing ??
Or is it a hand job so to speak??

[Loochy88]

what do you mean by cracks? do you have chips/nicks in the wheels? or are you saying the crevases of the wheels are dirty. you would have to sand nicks/scratches/nicks out with sandpaper like i said earlier. if you were talking about the grooves and crevaces of the wheels, there is nothing you can do but use your fingers and a rag and try to fit them in there. a power washer wont hurt the wheels, but i imagine it wont hurt. how many psi are we talking here. i have no idea how many psi it would take to scratch/damage aluminum.

[Ted]

Man, i don't know loochy i'd be afraid of sanding my wheels and messing them up. Around here right now they're construction on every known highway so it's hard to keep my wheels clean. Polishing takes for ever for just one wheel and by the time i'm done I don't feel like doing the other 3, so a few weeks later I start on the other one and I never make it to my rear wheels, lol. I clean them with non amonia glass cleaner every 2 days, if not every day. So they don't get too bad. BUT!!!! I do have a tip for you. You can use a powered polisher. I'm looking into buying one. A friend of mine had one he used on his cobra wheels all the time. I think they're like 100 bucks from snap on. They'r airpowered which is good, so you can really go at it. Talk to your local snap-on dealer and ask him about it. Polishing will take you less than 10minutes a wheel after that.

[Loochy88]

Originally posted by Ted:
Man, i don't know loochy i'd be afraid of sanding my wheels and messing them up.

its actually pretty hard to mess them up. you just have to have the cahones to try it.

[nda0602v6]

I have to agree with loochy...

Super fine sand paper like 2000 grit isn't going to cause any damage. It's just like wetsanding paint but even safer cause you don't have to worry about sanding through a layer of clear per say. also helps to keep the sand paper lubricated.

I used to polish those big aluminum rims and fuel tanks you see on big trucks (18-wheelers). If the aluminum was a little dull or somewhat rough to the touch, we scrubbed them down really good with S.O.S. Pads first, hosed off and dry, then used mother's polish. Wheels came out to a mirror shine. We would also use super fine sand paper like 1500-2000 grit to sand out scratches and nicks on aluminum fuel tanks, then buffed out to a mirror shine with mothers. I think you could use an electric buffer to do your rims, just so the buffing pad is fairly small. You know you're working with bare aluminum if when you use a polish like mothers, the rag should turn black or to a dark gray color as you rub the wheel. You could also use a very heavy paste wax for protection on the rims once you're done spit shining.

[Distephano]

Originally posted by Loochy88:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ted:
Man, i don't know loochy i'd be afraid of sanding my wheels and messing them up.

its actually pretty hard to mess them up. you just have to have the cahones to try it. </font>[/QUOTE]You are sanding. You really can't mess up. Unless you use like 2 grit sandpaper and take off a 1/2 inch of metal, you really can't do any harm. If you put imprefections in with the sandpaper.... YOU CAN SAND THEM OUT! [img]smile.gif[/img]

The worse that can happen is, you can cause yourself a few extra hours of work.

[GRAHAM88]

Thanks guys!!!
Guess Iam in for a long work out!!

[Formula]

I dont use any power tools on my wheels, just a bunch of elbow grease.



[ May 07, 2004, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: Formula ]

[Coriya71]

Zoopseal available at www.jegs.com

[Loochy88]

Originally posted by Coriya71:
Zoopseal available at www.jegs.com

zoop seal is only good for keeping them shiny. you have to polish them to get there first. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Coriya71]

After I do get a mirror Finnish HOW DO I keep it that way?

One question at a time :D