I think what you did is fantastic! One thing I like to mention that is very useful: make sure you do what you did around the area where the tire bead meets the rim. Making that area smooth allows a good air-tight seal for your tire.
Mothers Mag & Aluminum polish is great stuff. I use it for all kinds of things. For example, I have a Ruger GP100 .357 magnum revolver that had a mat finish and I wanted to polish it to a shine. Using just a rag and some Mothers M&A Polish, it had almost a mirror finish within about 30 minutes. I just polished it while watching the news on TV. The point is that it not only works on aluminum but also steel. Of course, it's just a polish and other polishes, such as regular polishing compound, are good too, but I've had such good results with Mother's that it's my go-to general purpose polish. In fact, if it warms up today (it's March 21 as I write this), I'm going to go out and polish the aluminum wheels on my Triumph Rocket III Touring today. Good video! Thanks for posting it.
I started with the white mothers paste and it worked good on alloy welds so I stuck with it. I do all metal types as well, silver magnesium alloy steel brass and so on. The slots look awesome, I always like them on muscle cars. My Cortina also has some but in magnesium wich buffs out nice too. Thats some old school cool right there.
That was incredible. Inspires me to do it myself. As opposed to buying new rims, I'll try and find some used ones and try some good old elbow grease. Thank you for the confidence boost.
You can actually use a electric grinder with a cotton buffing wheel and different color rouge polishing compound. If you have some scratches or whatever to get out, you can use the green or red, which is more aggressive of a compound and it will smooth it out, then follow up with the white which will really make it shine. Then use a softer cotton polishing wheel and the mother's mag polish, followed up with the mother polish that's in a bottle with some micro fiber towels. It make it shine like you have no idea! Great info. You did a great job with the prep on the wheels. I actually just bought a used pro tech truck box that I am going to polish up tomorrow gonna take a while because of how big it is. I'll probably use a car buffer with some mother's and just go to town on it.
Great job man! They look brand new. You obviouslydon't give yourself enough credit. I didn't think they would look no where close to the final product. Amazing!
Thanks for this great video. You did a great job filming and presenting your project. They came out really great and I'm sure they look great on your car trailer.
Jim Vincitore don't waste your time on mother's polish. The problem is that it's a single stage polish. Any truck stop has BETTER stuff than mother's polish.
Jim Vincitor, Bush polish sold at truck stops is almost as good as ours. I would say thats the best I know of off the shelf. Most polish is too hard to use or leave a haze or is just plain made to sell as cheap as possible for more profit. We are currently not manufacturing due to moving to new location. mirrorshineusa.com is ours.
You did a really good job on you're rims, that's most likely around 2 to 2 and a half hours to do each rim. Very time consuming. Now if you spray them down with WD 40, that helps keep the luster of your time. Road tar won't stick. I do this to my motorcycle mag rims and the engines, and clutch and hand levers at my motorcyce shop of 40 odd years. Yeah I would haft to say you had done a superb job friend. Thumbs up for you.
I've got 4 on my old truck, 67' f-100. I had them polished back in the 70's, and I'm going to have to start all over again, just like you did. I'm also looking for another wheel for a spare. Thanks for the video. Your wheels are starting to look great again...nice work.
I liked the way you produced this video.The results of the different steps were the important part. My Silverado wheels are badly corroded and it's a project I'll tackle in the spring. Thanks.
Lighter fluid, or naptha is good for removing the adhesive. When I did my wheels, after cleaning, scrubbing, sanding n polishing, I taped up the slots, (mine were round holes, similar to the Peterbilt wheels, going on my 72 Chevy C10) And all the openings on the front of the wheel, then I painted the backside using high gloss black engine paint, resistant to oil, water n gas. This treatment gives the front side more contrast against the black backside and the holes or slots just pop, giving it a more highly detailed look, n the imperfections are hardly noticeable. I've gotten many compliments on the way they look. Good job sir. It is a labor of love. The more time you spend with them the more shine you get out of them. Almost chrome looking...
Those look amazing. Have always preferred highly polished aluminum even over chrome (personal preference). Those look like the American Slot Mags from the ‘70’s (think Starsky and Hutch Torino).
Excellent, and thank you for posting your experience with restoring these aluminum wheels, as this is actually applicable to refinishing anything aluminum. I am looking to bring back some shine to my RV's aluminum framed windows and door frame. I was considering etch priming them and painting them. But now, seeing that polishing is actually the easy part, I think I will forgo the paint, and simply polish them, because other than being greyish, they are in perfect condition. Thanks for the useful info.
Hey brother I don't know if you know this trick or not but after your final polish if you use a cloth and take talcum powder or even flour and coat the cloth with the powder and wipe the wheels off. It takes all the black out and you will be impressed even if you try it on a rough area. It shines like chrome. Give it a try
I got an old work truck recently and of course I wanna polish it up and make it look sharper LOL so thanks for the video exactly what I expected to polish them out but now I know I'm not gonna ruin them LOL
I had a set of these mags and I use too use autosol mixed with a little kero on them instead didn't need a buffer as the kero use to make the autosol glide over the rim too give it a brilliant shine and only took 5-10 mins to complete a rim...
I've restored several sets of aluminum rims. I'm just finishing a set for my 03 Super Duty. They are huge 16x12 Mickey Thompson Classic Locks. They were absolutely blitzed when I got them. It was like the guy put them on his truck, and never cleaned or washed them at all, and just beat them up for about 6 years. I've spent at least 25 hours per wheel- mostly wet sanding to get the surface nearly 100% immaculate. I started with 400, then 600, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, then polishing by hand with the Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish... It's been a ton of work but they are far better than new, and will be stunning with the new Mickey Thompson 36x15.50 MTZ radials!!
MEK methel ethel ketone is more aggressive in getting the wheel weight adhesive off. In my opinion those wheels look great after you polished them up to the extent that you had done. It's not a perfect world and in my opinion, if someone doesn't like how my wheels look, they're more than welcome to buy me another set or to sit down and correct the flaws that they don't like.
They look pretty good! Thanks for posting. I’m doing my Alcoa aluminum wheels now on my F 450. The rears are in terrible shape. Pitted, but after some initial wire wheel work I’m optimistic I can get them to shine again. Dually BTW.
Any truck stop most likely have a person that will do this. I use to get my truck rims and fuel tanks done. They would look like chrome. These guys don't have shops, they just kind of hang around.
We had 4 of these on our 1974 nova. We cleaned them up with steel wool and just shot them gloss white. Looked real good too. I don't think they even had buffing balls like that back then.
Yes indeed MUCH improvement will look sweet once installed with the right center caps, Good work well worth your time to share. I wll be doing this very method you have shown here. So ya , THANKS.
Mistake to use "Steel Wool" on aluminum. Sure, they look good now but there's a little thing called "Galvanic Corrosion" that you unintentionally invited to the party. Also, ONLY use aluminum oxide sanding abrasives, No Emory Cloth or any black sanding paper, discs or otherwise. It DOES make a difference. You know what I'm talking about in a year or two. If you keep them very clean and polished you may get lucky but it's a lot of work to rely on lucky.
0000 steel wool is so fine it doesn't damage aluminum 😂. Guys are sanding aluminum with 80 grit and as with any aluminum polishing... you work up to get out scratches and swirls. Some of the best professional polishers in the trucking industry use 0000 steel wool but what would they know 😂.
@@TheRoadhammer379 If they are using "Steel" wool on aluminum, they DON'T know what they are doing. Or any sand paper that isn't aluminum oxide or scotch brite. The grit level is irrelevant. The material of the abrasive matters on aluminum. Using steel wool instead of aluminum wool on aluminum is an uneducated, BIG mistake. Google "Galvanic Corrosion".
Those wheels appear to be either early to mid 70s Jeep Wagoneer wheels,or same era Chevvy 4wd truck wheels which both used the bolt on center caps which are why the holes are in them between the lug nut holes... Looks good when finished...
Thank you for the informative film. May I ask you how did you polish the inner part of the wheel, that one which goes inside of the tire (for better sealing of the tire and the rim). I do my first tire and not sure about it. I removed the dirt line above the bead w/a triangular sand paper 120-150-220, and plan to go w/320-400-600, but do I need to apply Mothers paste. I'm afraid it will interact somehow w/tire grease I obviously plan to apply before the new tire is installed. I would appreciate your opinion on this method.
I bought my 8 lug16.5 westerns slots new in 1977, they are a machine finish, and I have to clean them in one direction, yes they take lots of time to polish, but the end result is awesome. I find that magic mix cleans the best and that simichrone polish gives the best shine. Luckily I have no curb rash at all
excellant video.a ftiend of mine gave me some edelbrock valve-covers.they needed cleaning as well.we polished and polished.buffed and buffed.we got them looking pretty good.was a lot of labor but i think it was worth the trouble.we got them on a 350 chevy motor.in a 38 chevy coupe.they turned out good we used the mothers mag and wheel cleaner..good product.thanks for the video.
Those are the exact stock rims on my 77 Ford E150 club wagon château! I was just looking up how to polish them and found the exact rims. What are the chances lol
Two thumbs up on the Mothers. I did the aluminum wheels on my 79 Vette a few years back and found out thru trial & error about the Mothers. Now I only touch up my wheels 'bout once a year with the Mothers.
Haven't seen anything on youtube that you described, hoping you make a video on the actual process, my rims have a lot of oxidization and I am wondering how to get that off
Great job. Just a suggestion that I use in my shop to clean dirty aluminum . I use wheel acid pure and a tooth brush or similar. It will clean all that stuff off very easily. After that sand and polish.
say man thanks I have a set of Corvette rally wheels this is just needed to see. curb rash or not they look awesome thanks for sharing. now it's time for me to get to work
Very nice finish after the buffing with the Mother Ball. I recently refinished a set of aluminum Honda Enkei wheels that I clear coated after the fine sanding and 0000 steel wool. They looked clean and sharp but I believe they would have looked awesome like your finished wheel if they had received the buff treatment. Nice job.
