I have several restoration projects going. Steel wheels look great - even better than original when they are sand blasted, de-burred, and then powder coated. I de-burr them with a 4-1/2 disc sander and remove all sharp edges, weld flash, weld upsets and spatter, and nicks from tire mounters and de-mounters before I sandblast them. I remove all the sharp edges and other imperfections because they look better, but more importantly, because sharp edges are usually the starting place for rust and corrosion because the finish coat is always thin in these areas. Aluminum wheels are a totally different matter however. I had a set of 1980 Buick aluminum turbine wagon wheels that really needed restoring. I cleaned, and cleaned, and while the wheels looked markedly better after the cleaning, they had corrosion on the rims where the wheel weights had been. So I sent them off to Transwheel Corporation in Huntington, IN for restoration. Transwheel sandblasts the wheels, then powder coats the entire front face of the wheel. Next, they chuck the wheel up in a lathe and re-machine the face of the wheel just like the original factory treatment. This takes a NC lathe to do this. This exposes new aluminum by removing several thousandths off the surface. Finally, they powder coat in clear the entire face of the wheel. I just got my wheels back from Transwheel earlier this week and they are beautiful, and you'd be hard pressed not to know that they weren't new wheels. It is not cheap - however - each wheel in my case was $159 - but when you have wheels that are really rare like my Buick turbine wheels, the cost to me was worth it. I had Transwheel use 1985 Camaro Z-28 gold for the new spoke color, in place of the original gray. Click on the pictures to see a larger and more detailed view of the before and after wheels.
Hey boogie, what ya talkin about? I don't see no stinkin wheels, finished or not!Always here ta help Andy!
--Man we put out a little pressure and get results. We won't send the man with the cement blocks and the rope this time! Wheel looks nice.
Nice job with the wheels. I did something similar for the wheels on my trailer. I got a set to match the wheels on the car, but they were pretty corroded. I used a large plastic tub filled with water, and sanded the faces with a block in a radial motion with different grits up to I think 400, changing the water each time. I didn't want the machining marks back in there, but not a mirror finish either, just a brushed aluminum finish. Then I put on a good coat of Turtle Wax. That was about 10 years ago and so far they've held up great.
That wheel looks great. But you must have had a lot of time and elbow grease in doing that. In my case, the rim was pretty badly corroded under the wheel weights - way too deep to be removed without re-machining. If I get another set of wheels with less corrosion, I'll try your method - much better than spending $159 per wheel.
I have vintage 5 slot aluminum wheels on the rear of my wagon .... it was pretty simple, I set up a lazy susan so I could spin the rim as I sanded using 120 grit ("vintage" means old and crusty!!) and went down to 440 and the final sanding was 600 wet paper and double ought steel wool after that .... then I polished with Simichrome ... that stuff is the best! and after polishing I clear-coated with water-based matte finish in a rattle can ... they turned out really nice but the "touch" that made it all worthwhile was the Simichrome .... give it a shot!!!
Hi Wingnut. I am somewhat embarrassed that you and others have found ways to do a restoration on your own - without the use of a numerical controlled lathe. In my case, if the corrosion had been limited to just the rim, I think I could have done what you did. However, even the spokes had corrosion on them, and that is pretty difficult to sand as you rotate the wheel because the surface isn't continuous. But again, there is a lot to be said for the self satisfaction of doing it yourself and also not dropping big bucks to restore a wheel. I'd like to see a picture of your wheels if you can post them.
I'm pretty sure it took me a few hours after work for 2 nights, per wheel. The first night to get the clearcoat and corrosion off, the 2nd night for finish sanding. I could have used a clearcoat remover to speed the process but I didn't know about that till years later. The hardest part was the area where the weights go. I think there might have been a very tiny spot or two in the weight area where the corrosion was deeper than I wanted to sand the whole weight area down to, so I left it. They still came out WAY better than what I started with. So many alloy wheels I see with clearcoat are corroded so bad. You get one chip or scratch in the clearcoat, and the clearcoat seems to trap and encourage further corrosion. That's why I didn't re-clearcoat mine. That pic was taken in 2002, about a year after I did the wheels. I just walked out and looked at them again. They're dirty and could use a quick reshine sometime but they are still smooth and there are no corrosion pits. Quite honestly I've had a lot going on and haven't washed them in several years. I found a pic from 2005 and they still shine. And in the spirit of it being a wagon forum, here's the trailer with the wagon that towed it very well for many years.
You can see with the design of the wheel that it was pretty simple to restore ... not a mass of cracks and crevices as yours were ... It was probably safe to say that the front of the rim looked like the backs when I first started . They were pretty corroded and scratched and oxidized ... I didnt do anything to the backside other than remove the road grime and grease. I also did the front spoked mags at the same time and repainted the spokes ..... the pictures dont do the end result justice though.
