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I got some wheels acid dipped, here's how they turned out.


Roman

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Not sure yet.
 
The finish currently looks perfect for paint adhesion, so I'm considering options for painting first and polishing the polishy bits afterwards before they get dirty.
The type of finish currently on the wheel, definitely isnt appropriate to roll as is. 
It looks like it would pick up a crazy amount of dirt/brake dust, and it's obviously a very dull looking finish.
So it isnt a magic bullet that gives you a wheel thats ready to roll, but my opinion so far is that it's an option to consider if you dont want to spend a million hours cleaning wheels.

It does look like it's etched away some amount of the surface of the wheel all over, as previously there were faint machining marks on the "polished" surface of the rim that are now gone. So keep this in mind if you have some wheels that have some racing legends signature hand engraved into a spoke or something like that, it may slightly deteriorate very fine details.
 
When/if I buy some other wheels like starsharks or whatever, if they need restoring then I'd consider going down this path again.

It's a good process for something that has a lot of detail (like mesh wheels) with complex patterns which are difficult to clean mechanically.
 
I probably wouldnt try this on something like a Hoshino G5 or SSR Mk1, because you've got to polish up an absolute shitload of the centre of the wheel again.
 
Something dishy like a starshark where you polish up the lips anyway, and only small details on the spokes are polished. Seem like a good contender for this process.
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It looks like they will be reasonably easy to get looking decent without too much hand sanding/polishing/etc....
The only issue looks to be that since these wheels were in especially crappy condition to start with, some of the existing corrosion/scratches on the lip of the wheel looks too deep to really sand out. Bummer.
Should have started with a better set, lesson learned.

I started using the rear of the car jacked up to polish the (tiny!) lip on one of the wheels so far and seems pretty good results on that.

Because the faces of the spokes are flat, and there's nothing in the way, it will be super easy to use sanding pads/buffing pads/etc on the centre spokes to get most of the way there I think.
However this is a seriously tedious job that is zero amount of fun, haha. I'm cringing at thinking how much time this is still going to take!

There's zero chance of having these ready for putting tyres on by tomorrow for akl OS meet, which was my goal from a few weeks ago.

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Looks good. Another option might be to look at getting the wheels vapour blasted. Again, they don't come out a polished finish but they come out looking like they have been painted with a satin paint. They are also resistant to oil/brake dust etc as the finish is basically new aluminium.

 

Photos below taken from facebook, https://www.facebook.com/vapourblastingsouthcanterbury/

 

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13528538_542832259222094_111526724695955

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I did the same thing with a big plastic wheelbarrow and a phosphoric acid and water solution, and a lot of time and scrubbing.

 

It got the wheel as clean as can be. And left the paint intact.

Not sure phosphoric acid is that good for alloy, put some in a drink can and scrub the coating off the inside with a wire brush and wait an hour, the can dissolves.

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Spent a few hours sanding - polishing - painting this wheel.

 

I've got a full set, and started sanding the rest of them now too, wanted to do one start to finish to see how the end result would be. 

 

Only could get sand paper up to 1000grit, so the polish isn't as good as what it could be, so for the other 3 wheels I'm gonna try get a few more finer grades.

 

Not nearly as bad as what you began with Roman  :shock:

 

1zbsbwj.jpg

 

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I did wonder why the heck i'm spending time on these wheels (only 5.5 wide) and I have no idea if I'll ever use them!

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That looks really good!

I've been talking to Snoozin about taking these somewhere to get polished, but the thing is the wheels are pitted from lots of corosion from sitting so long.

So I've been getting in there with an air powered random orbital sander with 240 grit stick on discs.

Have managed to get most of the pitting out, with a brute force approach haha.

Because of the shape of these wheels it's actually stupidly easy to do these with the power tools. My impul wheels I couldnt do the same as there are nooks and crannies you couldnt reach.

 

Even just that so far and they're starting to look heaps better, will need to get some stick on sanding disc things in higher grades and see how that goes.

May require some hand finishing but for the better part should be able to plow through it with the air tools / polishing pad / etc.

ac1oxc2l.45l.jpg
 

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  • 2 weeks later...

You can get rag wheels to suit a Grinder or Drill, they work awesome with Autosol once you have the pitting sorted.

Used the Strip, Sand imperfections out then Autosol with a polishing wheel (Rag Wheel) method heaps of times, it takes what seems like years to get them to really sparkle but when you see those wheels on your pride and joy is all worth it.

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probably faster and better result to use some sticks of metal polishing compound  with buffing wheel, rather than autosol

these where done with a rag wheel on 8" bench grinder, with a couple of different compound polishes.  from a sanded finish it didn't take long to get them looking like this

 

dsc02427s.jpg

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