slot mag polishing

[57chevyman]

Hey y'all,
I'm gonna clean and polish my aluminum slot mag wheels. not worried about doing a full restore with grinding and sanding... but ide like to make them shine. whats your recomendation for products and methods to use for cleaning and polishing?

if anyone has experiences with certain brands working better than others id love to hear about it!

[Driver_WT]

I like Meguirs Hot Rims. https://www.amazon.com/Meguiars-G143...D53FYHB38DEB2B

[Black_Sheep]

Flitz and a powerball

[CountofMonteCarlo84]

I have had really good success with White Diamond, a couple good rags, and some elbow grease, which you can get at any local parts store

[joedoh]

call the local semi truck service, they will know where the local wheel polisher is. they do it with the wheels still mounted on the trucks and its cheap, sometimes cheaper than buying the stuff to do it yourself.

Aluminum Rim Polishing (drive) on the truck -...

[mr48chev]

That is a good idea there. I've seen the card one that does it in this area. The ones here polish all the aluminum on the trucks. I think they had their card at the shop that sells lights and shiny stuff for semi trucks that I go to for lights for my flatbed and my trailers.

Meguires, Mothers and Griot have plenty of good products to clean and polish aluminum wheels though.

[my56chevytruck]

For quite a while I've used ADAM'S POLISHES for all areas of my cars and truck. They have one of the best products for aluminum wheels. I also use a power ball to get into areas that I can't polish as well by hand. Check them out. My .02 worth

[Dan in Pasadena]

The semi truck video is very impressive BUT my OCD side can’t stand that they didn’t polish immediately round the center cap and lug nuts! Probably most people wouldn’t notice but it would drive me crazy.

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by Dan in Pasadena

The semi truck video is very impressive BUT my OCD side can’t stand that they didn’t polish immediately round the center cap and lug nuts! Probably most people wouldn’t notice but it would drive me crazy.

there are two reasons for this,

1. the wheel was already previously polished so just a light polishing in the center where the oxidation (from dirt and water) will be the least is all thats needed

2. these are being polished ON THE TRUCK because these polishers make their living at a truck stop and need to be done with a truck in the time it takes a trucker to eat, pulling drive wheels isnt easy and leaving them on lets them use the rotation of the wheel to their advantage.


if 57chevyman calls them, they will probably ask for the wheels to be off the truck.

[farmall]

I get the buffing wheels and rouge from my local Kenworth dealer. They have everything you need. I also use the Orange and White 3M bottles of polish. Forged and cast wheels are different. Forged are easy and polish to a mirror shine. Cast like yours are porous and when they are as old as slots that have not been made in decades they can have some corrosion. I have taken a set of cast slots and gone through 3 stages of grinding with the little 3M cups with all the little fingers and they came out looking very nice but up close you could see the casting pores. An old set of forged M/T / Alcoa Challengers I did for my jeep came out so nice they were just beautiful. You can also just acid wash them with alu wheel cleaner or muriatic acid at some level of dilution which is where I usually start with very old machined cast wheels.