Alloy wheel refurbishment

[Audijarvis]

I'd like to clean my standard alloys up

There's a fair amount of corrosion so I'm going to have to take them back to bare metal.

The cars a 95 1.6 Saloon

A couple of questions

What is the standard coating?

Is the centre cap made from the same material as the wheels?

Has anybody used a wire cup brush mounted on a drill to remove the corrosion/paint etc and if so was it to/not abrasive enough
Thanks

 

[aragorn]

i would be careful with a motorised wire brush.

I've started "refurbing" a set of boleros (i use the term lightly, as i'm just going to give them a quick clean up and a paint, not spending hours with filler!) and was using some 80grit paper to rub down the edges to smooth out the kerbing marks, and its pretty impressive how quickly it tears into the alloy and leaves pretty deep scratches. a motorised wire brush will probably be quite a bit more aggressive than 80grit sandpaper.

Centrecap material depends on the rims, some are plastic, some are alloy.

The standard wheels are just painted as far as i can tell.

 

[Foxmeister]

Yep, as Aragorn said, standard coating is paint.

As for wire wheel, wouldnt advise it mate, you'd spend longer after trying to smooth out the area you used it on.

Start with a low grade paper, around 120 grit, then use 1200 for final smoothing before paint. You can work up the grades but wheels arent as delicate as panels so would be a waste of time. If you want to do it quick and not sand by hand, get yourself a sanding mouse like Bosch or the like, does a lot of work in next to no time and leaves a good finish, although depending on style of wheels you will have to work some tight areas by hand still.

 

[Audijarvis]

Dam I was hoping someone was going to say they tried it and found it an easy way of removing corrosion etc

I've used a brass wheel on a swing arm with good results (better than I would have believed, came up like brushed alloy) but I guess it would depend on the type of alloy etc

Will just have to get the paint stripper/wet and dry out

Looks like Sundays going to be a long day

 

[olds_kool]

ive used a steel brush/drill on alloys, bought a set of genuine mazda 15's for the wifes mx5 and they had corroded where wheel weights had been attached (the type meant for steel wheels) put the wire brush on them and it removed it without going into metal but i used a fairly large steel wheel and light pressure i would say you'd be fine with a brass one