Quote:
Originally Posted by TundraBear
she looks great! i'm really impressed with how well the rims came out. i need to do that to mine as well. sorry for the interrogation, but i've never done any sanding before, so could you break down your process a bit? is the clear coat only on the lip or are the on the arms too? how did you get in the crack where the lip meets the arm? all that was done by hand?
i bought my rims used nad they came with a few scuffs on the arms as well, but if i could get the clear coat off like you did, that would make them look 100 times better!!
thanks!
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Thanks, that was the hardest part of the whole deal. I had heard on another thread that only the lip was clear coated, someone used a pressure washer to get the clear coat off. Tried that, but it didn't work for me. They had said they used a pressure washer and hot water, so maybe that would've worked but I didn't try with hot water.
The clear coat does seem to be only on the lip. I tried steel wool, 1000 grit, 600 grit first and it was just painfully slow. Even with the 220 grit, it took a lot of hard work and sweat to get that clear coat off.
Where the lip meets the inner part of the wheel, it isn't perfect. Basically you are folding a piece of sandpaper in half or fourths, so you have a nice solid edge of paper. Use that edge to go along the inside edge of the rim. Also, where the lip meets the inside of the wheel, there is a small ridge so it makes it easier to keep the sandpaper on the lip only.
The clear coat is by far the biggest work on this job. Hitting it with 600 and 1000 grit is easy once the clear has been removed. I'd imagine the next step would be wet sand with 1000, and then maybe 1500??? Then a Power Ball and Mothers metal polish. Only concern is the bare aluminum, I suppose I could wax it. But I think it looks fine, and if need be I can hit it with 1000 grit when/if it starts looking bad again.
I had planned to do this months ago, but was afraid it would really screw them up. With a quote of $125/wheel, I was left with no choice. Not gonna pay someone $500 to clean them up when I could buy new ones for $800. A lot of these places also want to re-clear coat it again. No thanks.
As far as the arms, don't know how to clean them up. I believe they are painted, so you can't really sand/polish them. I've seen others on here that painted them gun metal, so maybe you could have them repainted? But unless it was real bad, I wouldn't bother. I have some knicks here and there from use and tire guys hitting it with their wrenches, it's bound to happen.
/Mike