removing clearcoat
 

I have the original aluminum clearcoated wheels and I started stripping one today to see how it would look because the clear coat was chipped and cracked and not able to be saved.

Anyone else have pictures of their before and after results?
What steps and products did you use?

Re: removing clearcoat
 

Never stripped a wheel before, but I've used Aircraft stripper on paint before with good results, have to wash thoroughly with soap and water afterwards. I would think on a wheel a dremel or die grinder with a scotch wheel or brush would work good.

Re: removing clearcoat
 

About 10 years ago I took a set and basically polished them with a scotch brite on a die grinder, then just applied urethane clear to them. It was still on there and shiny a month later when I sold the car. If I remember right, I used a water mix of soap and simple green while sanding on them. Seems it sanded and cleaned them all at the same time, rinsed them clean, used wax and grease remover and just cleared them.

Re: removing clearcoat
 

I did some several years ago...I used Mothers Metal Polish and "0000" steel wool by hand.

Re: removing clearcoat
 

okay, more progress on the wheels today.

So far i only stripped about 95% of the clearcoat off the face of ONE of my wheels to see how it would look as you can see in the pictures above.

Today me and my friend took another one off and he did the same thing to that one while I finished making sure i got all the coating of my first wheel and then we proceeded to polish them.

We actually had FOUR different polishes to choose from and i thought it was only fitting to try them all and compare.

1 Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish
2 Meguiars Hot Wheels Mag and Aluminum Polish
3 Green Magic Polish
4 Simichrome

I did a little section of each on the same wheel and Simichrome was the BEST! I looked up the MSDS on all these products and the Simichrome has Ammonia in it which as far as i can tell is the reason it shined so much better than the others. All the other polishes still left some form of haziness or light swirl scratches on the wheel which was not acceptable. The second best would be the Meguiars, then mothers, then green magic.

Just thought i'd let ya'll know