Steps to polishing your car rims

Last post showed you the tools to polish your wheels, here are the steps taken to do the polishing job.

First strip the paint using an Automotive paint stripper. I found one at the local canadian tire, but many say walmart carries it as well.

With the paint stripper, read as directed, however general guidelines are to spray the wheel in a shaded area and let the product sit for 20 minutes or until bubbling occurs. Once it bubbles, you can pressure wash the paint off. Note: this can get quite dirty doing this part!

After you have stripped the paint to your satisfaction, or until it wont come off anymore, I went on to sanding the rims and my curb rash. Basically, how I sanded was I used something like this:



Then when I was content, I got to using a finer sandpaper. I sanded the rim by using a mixture of water and a liquid metal polisher purchased from canadian tire to be used on aluminum. With the water based mixture, I kept dipping and sanding by hand the wheel with each of the finer grits until the swirl marks were not visible. Once sanding was complete, let the rim dry and clean the rim to ensure no dust remains.

I started with the black emery compound, moved to the brown compound and finished with the white polishing compound.

The steps you take are basically rub the black compound into the wheel that looks like a rope with a rough shape (attached to your drill). Cover the wheel with the black compound, and go over the dry surface with the wheel covered in black compound. Cover the entire wheel and when complete wipe off excess residue with a clean rag. You don't want the compounds to stay on the rim and mix with the next compound.

I then went to the brown compound, using the same steps as the black compound but with the lighter wheel in the kit. Polish all areas of the wheel with this compound.

After complete, clean the rim and apply the white compound by hand or the provided tools. I did the face of the rim by the tools, and the hard to reach areas by hand.

Note, the higher RPM your drill can go, the better the polished rim will look.

Congratulations, you probably are cursing starting the project as it's taken so long, but you should have a nice shiny wheel in the end.

I will have pics up soon of the finished product of my newly polished wheel.

Regards, MK
Learn about Car Detailing in my other blog!

How to Polish Car Rims: Tools Needed

The previous post showed my Acura Integra stock rim, and the condition it was in. Something needed to be done and I decided to Polish my rim as a way to make it better and a way to learn to polish car rims.

Before you start any body work type project, you must get the right tools.

For this project, I first ordered the proper polishing compounds. I got this from Caswell Plating, and I ordered the wheel aluminum polishing kit. The kit comes with the black and brown compounds, White Rouge Liquid Polish and the proper wheels for the job.

Here is a picture of the kit:



To use the polishing compounds and the wheel provided, you need a drill that has a higher RPM value so it can sustain the amount of quick rotation needed to properly polish your wheels.

Lastly, you will need tools to strip and sand your wheels before being able to polish them. While I was told sanding is not necessary as the compound should get through it if you strip the paint properly, I did sand them to ensure it was level and to remove my curb rash.

Ensure the sandpaper you get is able to be wetsanded for when you do final sanding steps prior to polishing.

These are the tools I have used, however I've seen others have success with sanding their rims down completely to a really high grade of sandpaper such as 1000 grit, and then use a product like Mothers Aluminum Polish to shine them up. This also works great, and may be the method I try next time If i decide to polish my rims again.

In my next post, I will take you through the exact steps I have taken in polishing my rims.

Regards, MK
Learn about buying a used car in my other blog.

Wheel Rim Repair: Decision to Polish my Rims

As part of perfecting my car and fixing any defects I was unhappy with, I came to my Acura Integra car rims. At the time, they were my main rims, however they have now been replaced with a nicer set currently and have been retired as winter rims. Before, I got my better rims I decided to try and polish my wheels to learn and to see how it would look.

My thoughts were to either paint my rims silver or a gunmetal colour, or try and polish my rims to a nice shine. I decided to try and polish them first, and if it did not turn out as I wanted I could always paint my rims. Here is the initial pictures of the Wheel that had curb rash and other blemishes.

Initial Wheel Pics of my stock Acura Integra Rims:




As you can see, something needed to be done if I wanted my wheel rims to look good to ride on. So I went ahead and ordered the products that I needed to continue with this body work type project.

Look forward to my next post detailing the tools I got to polish my rims!

Regards, MK
Check out car buying tips in my other blog.