Any experts on aluminum wheel polishing?

[Warren99]

Never tried it before, but went out and got nevr-dull wading polish, mothers mag and aluminum polish, and a mothers power ball. 3 of the 4 wheels I got to what is good enough for me. But one of them, which was noticeably more dull to begin with, came out basically unchanged. Anybody know how I can get this one closer to the rest?

these two pics show one of the “good” ones after polishing.

 

before and after I polished the bad one 

first wheel is the bad one, the other 3 are what I’m considering “good”

 

If all it takes is to just simply keep adding polish and using the power ball until I see results then lmk, but the other 3 didn’t take long to look like that

[Smokeyyank]

You might have to sand it down with a 1000 grit or so and build it back up. Looks like it's oxidized a lot and polishing alone won't get it there. 

 

Below is a turbine I polished. I started with 120 to 400 to 600 to 1000 to 2000 then used a good polish on them. The pic of both is untouched and 600

[Warren99]

Did you use a sanding pad on a grinder?

[OldSch88L]

Aluminum wheels normally have clearcoat of them because otherwise, aluminum corrodes pretty fast. My guess is that you polished the clear on the 3 nice ones, but the fourth looks completely stripped of its clear and corroded. The only way is to sand it to remove the corroded layer, hope there's not too much pitting, polish it and then seal it with clear. It's a really tedious process. The Level II Alcoa wheels on my Ranger had a machined finish, so I had to start pretty coarse, 80 grit IIRC and went all the way to 3000 wet, then polish and finally clear. For clear, I used AlumaClear. It's popular in the heavy trucking crowd as it's pretty much the only clear that'll stick to mirror-finish aluminum. It's easy to strip with mineral spirits because the company recommends stripping it and starting over every 2 years to keep the glossy finish. My wheels are going on 4-5 years and still look nice and the clear ain't that dull yet. Also, when sanding, if you don't want to go through every single grit, you can skip steps. The general rule of thumb is "double", I.E. if you just finished 800 grit, you could skip the 1000 and go with 1500 instead, then 1500 to 3000 instead of 2000, etc. With some patience and elbow grease, you can get great results!

 

 

[Warren99]

After continuing to polish a lot in small sections I got it looking as good as the other 3 in those local spots. It will take a loooong time to do the whole thing but ig I'll have to.

[Smokeyyank]

23 hours ago, Warren99 said:

Did you use a sanding pad on a grinder?

I used these and sand paper by block/hand.

https://www.harborfreight.com/4-in-400-grit-abrasive-ball-61183.html

 

[Warren99]

Ended up deciding it was just really dirty. I used some oven cleaner on it and that helped a lot. After that used some nevr dull cotton stuff and then polished it again. It looks a lot better but it’s still not a reflective chrome like the others 

[jpnjake]

7 minutes ago, Warren99 said:

Ended up deciding it was just really dirty. I used some oven cleaner on it and that helped a lot. After that used some nevr dull cotton stuff and then polished it again. It looks a lot better but it’s still not a reflective chrome like the others 

I went to harbor freight and picked up a cheap polishing pad set that goes on a drill and it works wonders on stuff like this, polished a lot on my rear bumper, and I tested a spot on my bare aluminum wheels and it worked amazing, it cost 11$ for the pads and 7$ for the polish 

[Warren99]

Just now, jpnjake said:

I went to harbor freight and picked up a cheap polishing pad set that goes on a drill and it works wonders on stuff like this, polished a lot on my rear bumper, and I tested a spot on my bare aluminum wheels and it worked amazing, it cost 11$ for the pads and 7$ for the polish 

This is what I used

 

 

[Smokeyyank]

I used both the mothers ball and the hobo freight kit. Harbor freight kit works a lot better. Polish ball was fine for basic maintenance/clean up but wasn't able to give me the shine like the actual polish kit. 

[Warren99]

ah ok

[Warren99]

I might try some heavy scotch bright and see if that will allow either of the products I'm using to have the same affect as it did with the other wheels

[jpnjake]

3 hours ago, Warren99 said:

This is what I used

 

 

I think those are more for maintaining a shine, once it goes so far you need a kit like this 

https://www.harborfreight.com/14-piece-aluminum-polishing-kit-98707.html

 

this Is similar to the one I used, each compound Is for different materials 

 

[Warren99]

ah ok

[OldSch88L]

From experience, where that wheel seems to be at by looking at that picture, I would wet sand it by hand with a 3000 pad, then the mothers mag polish and then Meguiars Ultimate compound. Try the 3000 on a small area first; as you may need to go to 2000 then 3000. But from what I can see from the picture, I think you're almost there and I'm pretty sure the 3000 grit will do the trick.