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Cleaning/restoring 3 Piece Wheels

Bren81

By Bren81,
in Exterior & Interior Styling

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Bren81 Contributor

Bren81

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Hi everyone. I searched but couldn't find anything similar to my problem.

I am trying to clean years of grim, water marks and light corrosion off my wheels. They are Enkei Winsome 3 piece wheels and have a lot of bolts that I am having trouble cleaning around. I have successfully used some metal polish to clean the dish part of the wheel and using a clay block and paint cleaner on the painted middle section of the wheels, but I am struggling to clean the water marks/corrosion around the bolts.

Has anyone got any tips?

I was thinking about removing 1 bolt at a time and cleaning that spot, replace bolt and repeat.

Is this safe?

Should I get the wheels re-balanced after I do this?

What torque for the bolts?

Am I making this more complicated than it needs to be?

Here a a few pics (I hope this works)

Corrosion/Water Marks around bolts

wheel%20bolts.jpg

Wheels before cleaning

wheel%20dirty.jpg

Wheel now.

wheel%20clean.jpg

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XGTRX Veteran

XGTRX

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Before you take the bolts out you can try with a dremel with an extension, polishing head and some metal polish and see how you go. If no good then yes you can take a couple of bolts off at a time. You can always check the torque with a manual torque wrench when you take them off. Then use the dremel to polish it.

Its a prick of a job but well worth it.

Edited by XGTRX
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Bren81 Contributor

Bren81

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Thanks Guys,

I am going to pull the wheel off the car tonight, sitting hunched over on cold concrete for 3 hours last night killed my back.

I will try with the dremel with the bolts still in first but I think it is going to be harder than removing a bolt or 2 at a time then cleaning/polishing by hand.

I will post up pics when I am done.

Trex - To get them to the stage they are now I have just used Autosol Metal Polish with a tennis ball wrapped in a microfibre cloth, the tennis ball made it easy to do the dish part of the wheel. http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/online-store/products/Autosol-Polish-Metal-350g.aspx?pid=345178#Recommendations

However, my wheel are raw alloy, no clear coat or anything. From the reading I have done online, clear coat on some wheels is really hard to cut and polish but it can be done.

For the painted middle section I have used Meguires Ultimate Compound. It is awesome stuff, cleaned up and and removed really deep scratches in the paint on my Patrol. http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/online-store/products/Meguiar-s-Ultimate-Compound-450mL.aspx?pid=214309#Recommendations

I will check out the polishing BBS RS videos tonight.

Cheers.

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Bren81 Contributor

Bren81

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Small update of what I got done tonight.

I tried removing 2 bolts at a time but it wasnt working very well, I let all the air out then took out 4-5 bolts at a time. Screwed around for hours before I worked out a quickish way to do it. Takes about 45nm of torque to undo the bolts so I am tightening them back up to 40nm because I figure it takes a bit extra to crack the bolt. I have decided I will get them rebalanced and checked when I am finished just to be safe.

Cleaned loose crap off with Shellite, then cleaned off the chunky corrosion with a tiny steel brush dremel attachment by hand (not in the dremel) then polished by hand the remaining scuff and marks etc with the metal polish. Cleaned up the head of the bolts with a polishing attachment in the dremel with metal polish.

It is going to take forever (took 5 hours to do about a third of the wheel) but I am really happy with the result.

Before

bolts%20before.jpg

After

bolts%20after.jpg

The wheel so far.

third%20done.jpg

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junkie Mentor

junkie

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spent about 4 hours on mine today, arm about to fall off

has anyone dealt with deep pitting in the aluminium? i can sand it all out but some it is fairly deep and dont want to take too much material off

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Bren81 Contributor

Bren81

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I have finished one of the wheels. It looks good but I am not happy with the centre.

I have decided to go all out of the next wheel. I was thinking about getting the centre electrplated (either chrome or a satin finish) but first I am going to try polishing it myself.

I completely dissasembled the wheel this time. Used paint stripper on the centre then polished up a section to see how it would look, I think I am going to be able to get it to a level I am happy with. If I cant I will look at getting the centres painted or electroplated.

Pics...

First wheel finished. (centre is still painted, hosed it down to see how the raw alloy would look after the water dried)

IMAG1628.jpg

2nd Wheel pulled apart.

IMAG1642.jpg

Test polishing the centre after stripping paint. (was only a quick sand and polish, should look better when I spend more time on it)

IMAG1646.jpg

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GTRPSI Mentor

GTRPSI

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I did something similar to a old 3 piece OZ Racing wheel set, only difference was they were clear coated which was peeling and really corroded.

I ended up sanding the outers to get the clear coat off, working my way to 1200 grit, with each sand removing the sand marks from the last grit.

Then buffed with a wool buff and cutting compound on a drill, final finish was done with Autosol, they came up mirrored like chrome.

You may be spending too much time on them because you are not sanding through the corrosion.

Those inners with the rough cast are best sanded smooth first to remove the rough casting, then polished.

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  • 1 month later...
Bren81 Contributor

Bren81

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I finally finished the first wheel today. I am really happy with how it looks but I am going to look at getting someone else to do the rest of them. Wasn't too hard just took a huge amount of time.

Still missing a few bolts that snapped when I took them out.

IMAG1715.jpg

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  • 2 months later...
Bren81 Contributor

Bren81

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Last update.

Finally got around to replacing a couple of bolts that snapped when I pulled apart the wheel, fitted, balanced, etc.

Really happy with how this one has turned out, but I am going to get the test polished professionally. Not worth the time or effort to do it myself. I reckon I spent 40hours on this wheel.

IMAG1856.jpg

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Bren81 Contributor

Bren81

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I was thinking about some sort of protection for them. I would prefer to avoid clear coat and have found references to "wheel wax" that protect raw alloy wheels. I think I will give that a try forst. The car also only does <1000kms a year, always garaged, etc so I am hoping this wheel wax stuff will suit.

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