Can someone tell me what was on these aluminum wheels? *pics*

[EBPcivicsi]

A little background on this project can be found here:



http://autopia.org/forum/showthread.php?t=68470



The wheels had some form of "gunk" on the rear that was *very* difficult to remove. I tried mineral spirits, clay, etc. The only thing that removed it was *aggressive* buffing with a drill and Mother's powerball. Man was I glad I had a powerball--could not have done this without it.



I ended up washing the wheels



Applying Mother's mag and aluminum polish with a MF applicator to a small section



Apply Mothers Power Metal AND Meguiars GC all metal polish (black bottle) and buff section with powerball



I then washed the wheels again to remove the residue (did not remove it section by section to save time)



Finally I applied one coat of NXT all metal polysh by hand to the entire surface, remove with MF





The "gunk" would smear around as I polished and was really a bear to remove.





Anyone know what this could be?

close up:

The face of the wheel was dull, but did not have the mystery gunk:

Here is how they turned out after about 2.5 hours of polishing:

 

[One HoT]

That gunk is exactly what happens when polished wheels with no clear coat get overly exposed to water...The water somehow embeddeds dirt and oxidation to the polished wheel and it stays there unless cleaned or repolished.



Easiest way to get rid of it by sanding down using 400 grit until all the gunk is gone then sand again by following with 600-800-1000-1500 grit. Finally repolish using the same method you have used.. Believe it or not, I use my rotary with a wool pad to re-polish my wheels and it gets similar results....



Very nice work ebpcivicsi!! Takes a lot of patience to get them looking like new again.. :2thumbs:

 

[EBPcivicsi]

That gunk is exactly what happens when polished wheels with no clear coat get overly exposed to water...The water somehow embeddeds dirt and oxidation to the polished wheel and it stays there unless cleaned or repolished.



Easiest way to get rid of it by sanding down using 400 grit until all the gunk is gone then sand again by following with 600-800-1000-1500 grit. Finally repolish using the same method you have used.. Believe it or not, I use my rotary with a wool pad to re-polish my wheels and it gets similar results....



Very nice work ebpcivicsi!! Takes a lot of patience to get them looking like new again.. :2thumbs:

That absolutely makes sense, the stuff was murder to remove.



Are the sanding marks easy to remove? Any "tracers" left? I can definitely see using a rotary on the wheels, had I had mine with me--I would have given it a shot.



I am a bit inexperienced with unpolishied aluminum, what degree of "skill" is required to remove the sanding marks?

 

[One HoT]

Are the sanding marks easy to remove? Any "tracers" left?

Just make sure your through enough to remove all the sanding marks from the previous grit with the next grit..This method takes a lot more manual than using just the powerball by itself but, it can be done within an hour or so. If you still find sanding marks, that just means you weren't through enough. I usually start off with 400 grit then 600 then 800 and skip to 1500 git...



If using powerball is enough to for the job, then stick with it..This is just another alternative..

I am a bit inexperienced with unpolishied aluminum, what degree of "skill" is required to remove the sanding marks?

Doesn't take much skill at all, just make sure that your meticulous with each grit. Takes a lot of time and patience get it right the first time. Polishing wheels takes 2 minutes to learn and a whole lot of time to master..



I'm sure you already know this but, using 2-3 coats of PoorBoy's Wheel sealant keeps the "gunk" from coming back...Great stuff..!

 

[One HoT]

This is one of my customer's wheels..Got it with all kinds of curbs markson the lips..The lip was clearcoated and painted as well....Took me 5-6 hours to get it looking like this since I started off with 60 grit to get rid of all the old finish and curb markings...Then I followed it by using 200/400/600/800/1500 grits respectively...There is still some sand markings because I didn't wanna damage the angled centered spokes with the rotary..It's not as polished as I would like but still a good reflection overall...Can't expect much results if your doing everything by hand...

 

[Rocket]

That looks like brake dust to me. I can tell you spent a ton of time on those wheels





When I bought my American Racing Torq Trust IIs I bought two used and bought two new. One of the two I bought used was pitted and oxidized pretty bad. I wetsanded them starting with 25 grit and moved up to 2000 grit. Once I finished I hand polished with Mothers Billet Polish and they came out a lot better than I expected. They looked new and even made the new ones look oxidized. I've since wetsanded all of the wheels and polished them up and they look great after 3+ years. They look almost like chrome.