wheel refurb/polish d.i.y

[Bournemouth James 0]

My konig wheels that are on my car at the moment have got a lacquered polished outter rim, some of the lacquer has started to peel off in places, i was thinking of rubbing them down and re polishing them.

 

How would i go about doing this?, what grades of sand paper would i use?, would i use wet and dry?

[russ360 0]

Are they split rim alloys?

 

I had an anniversary Mk3 GTI that had BBS split rims where the outer rim was corroding (spelt right??) due to the lacquer peeling coming off!!

 

Very hard to get a good finish without using the correct machine/equipment but there is a good wheel refub place in Romsey that will do them professionally for around £50 per wheel. Depends how good a job you want and how much you are willing to spend??

 

Russ

[Bournemouth James 0]

No there not split rims, just split rim look, its got to be diy cause there coming off soon to be replace with real split rims

 

I was thinking of rubing the lacquer off with a relitively coarse paper, then working my way down to a finnest grade paper, then polish them with metal polish, that should work should'nt it? do i use wet and dry, or just dry sand them?

[MoonlightVR 0]

Don't whatever you do use dry coarse paper! You'll ruin them with coarse scratches.

Suggest you strip the lacquer off with careful application of Nitomours paint stripper. Then use 600 wet or dry paper, moving up to finer grades, finishing with a good metal polish. The only downside to all this will be that you will not be able to relacquer the rim as it will be too smooth for lacquer to key to it. You'll just have to keep the wheels clean and give the outer rim a reasonably regular polish with the metal polish. Will look great though :D

[dazzyvr6 0]

this is what you want :) http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp?productID=8273

[robhearne 1]

A polishing mop will speed up the final polishing and you'll be able to get a better finish, but if it's just the outer rims that need doing then you should be able do a good job by hand. The secret is to polish it lightly but often, and in different directions each time. If you can remove the existing lacquer with paint stripper then polishing the rim should be fairly easy (assuming the aluminium is not marked), just make sure you keep the paint stripper away from the rest of the wheel or else you'll end up doing the whole thing.

 

As MoonlightVR said, 600 grade wet and dry is a good starting point, although if you need to remove marks from the aluminium then you may need to use a slightly coarser grade in localised areas, make sure that you use it with plenty of water. Get yourself a selection of grades and finish with 1200. For final polishing I'd recommend Autosol metal polish (available from most good car accessory shops, and Halfords). Frost do sell lacquer for polished aluminium, I bought some a while ago because I thought that it would come in useful but I've not tried it yet so I don't know how good it is.

[Bournemouth James 0]

Thanks guys