Tough Wheel Crud

Jaddie

Jaddie

New member
93_mercury_wheel_3735.jpg


My father-in-law bought this `93 Mercury Grand Marquis LS new, put about 135K miles on it as a traveling industrial electronics salesman, and then gave it to his parents, who are now deceased. From his parents it went to his brother for about eight to ten years. His brother wanted to sell it because his family bought another car and didn`t need this one. This happened at a time when my elderly mother made a booboo in trying to turn left across traffic and got her car totaled from a car that was on the other side of the nearest lane of oncoming traffic. So my mother bought this car. Now I`m cleaning it up. It was clean before, much cleaner than when it served as my father-in-law`s workhorse.

I`m going to clay it using a synthetic claying disc on a 6" Griot`s polisher, try to get some of the swirls out with a microfiber pad and Essence, coat it with CQuartz UK 3, and top that with Gliss.

That`s for next week or the week after.

Today I was going to wash the car but ended up spending nearly three hours on its tires and wheels.

I can`t get this crud off the wheels.

Here`s what I`ve tried:


  • Sonax Full Effect
  • Tar-X
  • Optimum Power Clean undiluted
  • Tuf Shine Tire Cleaner
  • Meg`s Wheel Brightener
  • Iron X Paste
  • Iron X Snow Shampoo
  • Scrubbing with Sonax brush (stiff) and Mother`s tire brush (stiff)
  • Rinsing with 3100PSI washer with 0° (red) tip at 1" away

The Wheel Brightener brightened up the wheels but may have damaged their finish, and it may have been the only thing that removed any of this crud. By the time I quit, though, what`s left wouldn`t budge.

Can I get this off? How?

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer.
 
You need some type of liquid fall out remover- I get mine from a guy that orders his from his paint supply house
Probably stronger than the sonax full effect
You might have to let it dwell and use some elbow grease- just do a quarter of the wheel @ a time
That stuff has been sitting on those rims for years and pitted them and thats making it way tuffer
 
Let the ironx paste dwell as long as possible before you agitate it. It`s just so it`s not drying up on you. Then repeat it till you get getting it done. So at least 5 minutes and preferably a lot longer if possible.

The wheel brightener is acidic and probably the baked on break dust has been damaged the clearcoat. So it`s reacting with the aluminum and it`s not good.

The last option is to sand blasting them and clearcoat them again. Or look for another set of wheels.

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I would look into also getting a new basic tooth brush with med hardness so you get in the tight areas and light pressure not hard will work best cause bristle tips will be allowed to move across surface


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If multiple attempts with wheel bright or other wheel acids don’t work I’m imagining they are just damaged and will need refinishing or buy a can of wheel paint from worth and spray paint them after they are clean to make them look better


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There is a British product called "Wonder Wheels" that is pretty powerful for removing baked-in crud. It`s the best I`ve seen for that application.

If you can`t get it clean, it might be easier just to paint the wheels since, in your cleaning, you`ve already done most of the work to prep them for paint anyway. Wurth makes a wheel painting kit of just paint and clear coat is fairly highly regarded. It only comes in one color, but there seems to be a high degree of uniformity in wheel color across cars from many different brands. Wurth is near a dead ringer for Porsche wheels, not sure how well it will match Mercury`s wheels, but my guess is that it will be very close.
 
Jaddie said:
93_mercury_wheel_3735.jpg


My father-in-law bought this `93 Mercury Grand Marquis LS new, put about 135K miles on it as a traveling industrial electronics salesman, and then gave it to his parents, who are now deceased. From his parents it went to his brother for about eight to ten years. His brother wanted to sell it because his family bought another car and didn`t need this one. This happened at a time when my elderly mother made a booboo in trying to turn left across traffic and got her car totaled from a car that was on the other side of the nearest lane of oncoming traffic. So my mother bought this car. Now I`m cleaning it up. It was clean before, much cleaner than when it served as my father-in-law`s workhorse.

I`m going to clay it using a synthetic claying disc on a 6" Griot`s polisher, try to get some of the swirls out with a microfiber pad and Essence, coat it with CQuartz UK 3, and top that with Gliss.

That`s for next week or the week after.

Today I was going to wash the car but ended up spending nearly three hours on its tires and wheels.

I can`t get this crud off the wheels.

Here`s what I`ve tried:


  • Sonax Full Effect
  • Tar-X
  • Optimum Power Clean undiluted
  • Tuf Shine Tire Cleaner
  • Meg`s Wheel Brightener
  • Iron X Paste
  • Iron X Snow Shampoo
  • Scrubbing with Sonax brush (stiff) and Mother`s tire brush (stiff)
  • Rinsing with 3100PSI washer with 0° (red) tip at 1" away

The Wheel Brightener brightened up the wheels but may have damaged their finish, and it may have been the only thing that removed any of this crud. By the time I quit, though, what`s left wouldn`t budge.

Can I get this off? How?

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer.
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I have a 04 lesabre (beater car) with the same crud. I used purple degreaser and a small brass brush. It took a while but it came off. That one part of the wheel where you can’t go back and forth with a brush is going to take some time. Get what you can with the brush. You may have to use some fine Emory cloth on those tight spots. Try the chemical these folks are recommending with the wire brush and a six pack of beer because you’ll probably be spending 3 more hours on it
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IMO they simply need replaced. I`d get some refinished ones from wheels tires and more dot com and never look back. All the really aggressive ideas that might get that stuff off will just, *IMO*, replace one problem with another one (namely, the compromised finish will be even more so).

Depending on size (15" or 16") and how nice you want `em, the price range from about $111 to $157. Easy for me to spend your money, but it`d simply solve the problem.

Eh, if I *had* to try something, I`d use the fiber/non-metallic brushes on a rotary too. While *I* wouldn`t use a brass brush, they make those in the same shapes/sizes.
 
There is no easy way. Any method is going to be a off the car, time consuming devotion to them. I had Dayton wire wheels for many years on the jag. I got rid of them after getting tired of the time they took. I loved them when they were clean, but good lord on the work. The BMW we bought three years old. The barrels of the wheels had never been cleaned. I tried rage wheel cleaner, sonax, several degreasers, tar remover, none did much with the normal agitation. I eventually used citrol 266 and a half dozen bug sponges, and a whole day. I`ve had really nasty wheels come clean much easier, but these ones where just a real bugger.
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So I guess I`m saying, either new rims, pick a product and lots of labor, or leave it as is.


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Find a body shop that does blasting. If iron-x paste didn’t touch them then they are gone. Hit the junk yards for suitable replacements.
 
I, for one, am a cheap SOB and like you, would try to clean the gunk off .... for a while.

BOTH my grandfathers were HEAVY into "doing it yourself." One was a shop (factory) mechanic and the other had a hobby of working on clocks, old watches, anything and everything on his cars and both of them were general tinkerers (inventors), so I have messing with things in my DNA.

That being said, I would give up trying to clean them and go with the next, least expensive option ... sand/media blasting and painting. I think the media blasting is necessary to get the best paint adhesion possible, though I would prefer powder coating for durability`s sake.

Yes, I would surrender to the demons of automotive neglect :P
 
Thanks for all of your input, friends!

I`ll find someone who can try to gently sandblast this stuff off. My mother would never invest in replacement wheels. She pinches pennies so tightly that she could make Lincoln scream.

Thanks again!
 
Accumulator said:
Won`t media blasting and repainting (let alone repowdercoating) cost almost as much as the replacements?
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Hehe. Not with my father-in-law involved. He said he has a small spot blaster we`re going to try. He`s likely to have friends who have sandblasters we can use if his spot blaster isn`t effective. My father used to have a large sandblast cabinet. It was my job to sandblast old alternator, generator, and starter parts. It may be possible to reduce or eliminate the crud without tearing up the wheels` finish to the point of their needing repainting.
 
Jaddie said:
My father used to have a large sandblast cabinet. It was my job to sandblast old alternator, generator, and starter parts.
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I`ll be darned! My father-in-law has that large sandblast cabinet that used to belong to my father. He used it when restoring his `69 Camaro and said it isn`t operable at the moment. He bought a small blaster yesterday, probably from Harbor Freight, and has some fine sand for blasting.
 
Just be sure to use the right kind of sand. It`s different to materials you are going to sand. I have some memory of when to sand aluminum parts they use nut shells. But just look it up what is best suited to use.

Fun to do DIY work. Good luck
 
There is a very alkaline product called brake off. Sold by malco. I don’t use it any longer but I can tell you I bet it will work. I’ve been using Griot’s iron and fallout remover for wheels, other than that I think refinishing is going to be the next step.
 
Between T&M, how about just plast-dip in place and see how it holds up. If a suitable color is found, and the products sticks well enough....lots of T&M saved..
 
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