• RME Gear & Apparel

Bringing chrome back to life....

skippy

skippy

Pretend Fabricator
Location
Tooele
The front wheels on my Dodge are starting to show some age from the numerous winters here in Utah. I keep my vehicles clean but never went as far as paying any special attention to my wheels and now they are starting to show it. What is the best process to remove the caked on brake dust and shine them back up. They are starting to show signs of oxidizing and pitting so Im sure it will take some pretty heavy elbow grease and even some sort of abrasive polish.

Thanks for the suggestions
 
S

STAG

Well-Known Member
P.s. Not sure which companies exactly but there are several in SLC that will polish them up to their full potential for a pretty fair price.

And p.p.s, I have tried the mothers powerball/powercone on some old aluminum wheels. Works well but they don't last long in my experience. I think I had to buy 2 or 3 to finish my set of wheels, but they turned out awesome after. It did seem to use up a lot more polish too by using the powerball.
 
Trate D

Trate D

Well-Known Member
"Extreme polish" by far the best polish I have ever used. Never dull, mothers, and anything else doesn't compare.... It's hard to come by and is on back order a lot but I have never found anything that works better. Worked in a tire shop for a long time and polished lots of wheels. Nothing we found ever worked as good. Chrome, aluminum, stainless didn't matter works on everything! Found this link on google http://www.1010tires.com/store/X-Treem-Wheel-Polish-3oz-Tin-60631.aspx
 
Last edited:
cruiseroutfit

cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
Moderator
Vendor
Location
Sandy, Ut
I've been bringing some chrome wheels back to life after many years of neglect. I started by simply washing all the dirt and loose debris off, then hit them with scotchbrite pads and steel wool while using either PB blaster (on rust) or some wheel cleaner on the baked on oil/grease. I'm on my last phase which is using some TurtleWax chrome wheel polish that has some grit and hopefully softens some of the light scratches from the scotchbrite and steel wool. Really happy with the results thusfar.
 
cruiseroutfit

cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
Moderator
Vendor
Location
Sandy, Ut
My weekend project, wheels for Whitey, my stocker BJ74. Many of the JDM trucks come over with blingy alloy wheels and while some favor the looks, I've never quite been able to stomach them. I'm generally not a giant chrome fan but they will work really well with the shall we say excessive amounts of chrome it already has :D

Before treatment
IMG_7719 (Small).JPG

After treatment
IMG_7721 (Small).JPG

Hard to see from the pic but there are a considerable amount off 'micro-scratches', some I think will continue to buff out as I polish the wheels but I'm honestly not too worried about it as they look 10x better.

The truck they will end up on, fitting eh?
10821116783_29a4f7c63a_b (Small).jpg

To be fair, Olly (cruiser here on RME) spent 2+ hours one afternoon scrubbing down the rust, I picked up where he left off. The back of the wheels were enough that I've wire-wheeled them, primed them and will be painting them black before mounting them up. I've set them up with 31x10.50 BFG AT's which I think should fit nicely on the rig.
 
skippy

skippy

Pretend Fabricator
Location
Tooele
well I spent a little time over the weekend and got them shined up I used steel wool and soap and water then went back over them with some chrome polish, There is some permanent pitting and stuff happeningbut they still shine up really nice.

Before:


After:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top