[gymjunkie]

I ended up buying Mothers Mag and Alloy Polish and after I got home I realized I probably bought the wrong stuff. What kind of wheels do I have? Will what I bought work? Is there anything else I can use this product on for my car? And lastly, is there any way of removing/fixing these dark marks on my wheels?

 

[ROMAN.IMPERATOR]

I use Simple Green and a soft/medium bristle plastic scrub brush on my whitewalls and it works amazing. I scrub the whole tire wall with that, then scrub it with Mother's back-to-black cleaner. Finally I spray it with tire shine and it looks brand new :bouncy: 3 easy steps to perfect tires.

 

[MoistCabbage]

Eagle 1 A To Z All Wheel And Tire Cleaner. I've tried every retail rim cleaner. None works better.

 

[Bro-Ham]

I ended up buying Mothers Mag and Alloy Polish and after I got home I realized I probably bought the wrong stuff. What kind of wheels do I have? Will what I bought work? Is there anything else I can use this product on for my car? And lastly, is there any way of removing/fixing these dark marks on my wheels?

Is the clearcoat on the wheel damaged?

 

[talismandave]

Is the clearcoat on the wheel damaged?

That is what it looks like.
I was hoping someone else who is more familiar would answer, but I will try.
If wrong someone will correct me I am sure.

The wheels of that vintage were polished and then clear coated. What happens is the rim gets a scuff and then water wicks under the clear coat.
Hopefully someone here will have done this before and join in.
I assume a stripper to remove the clear and then manually polish the wheel.

Then either reapply the clear, or leave them just polished aluminum.
We rolled all kinds of raw or natural aluminum wheels back in the 70's.
If you leave uncoated, you will want to find a different wheel cleaner than 99% of them sold.
You will want an etching wheel cleaner. Eagle1 Etching Mag Cleaner is the only one I know of but there could be others.
If it says "Safe For All Wheels" or for coated/painted wheels, it is not etching.

 

[gymjunkie]

Is the clearcoat on the wheel damaged?

I'm not sure, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to take a look

That is what it looks like.
I was hoping someone else who is more familiar would answer, but I will try.
If wrong someone will correct me I am sure.

The wheels of that vintage were polished and then clear coated. What happens is the rim gets a scuff and then water wicks under the clear coat.
Hopefully someone here will have done this before and join in.
I assume a stripper to remove the clear and then manually polish the wheel.

Then either reapply the clear, or leave them just polished aluminum.
We rolled all kinds of raw or natural aluminum wheels back in the 70's.
If you leave uncoated, you will want to find a different wheel cleaner than 99% of them sold.
You will want an etching wheel cleaner. Eagle1 Etching Mag Cleaner is the only one I know of but there could be others.
If it says "Safe For All Wheels" or for coated/painted wheels, it is not etching.

Etching?

 

[talismandave]

:google:Eagle1 Etching Mag Cleaner

 

[Stingroo]

Yeah, the clear coat on those rims is shot.

The only way you're going to clean those is to do a REAL polish to them. It's going to be labor intensive as hell, because you need to remove ALL of that clear coat to get to the metal beneath, and then start over to polish said metal.

With the tires ON, you'll need to hand-scuff it off and it's going to take for-f*cking-ever.

Better way: take the wheels to a shop, have them unmount the tires.

Spray them with aircraft remover. It will eat the coat off. Pressure wash it off, polish the wheels with that same Mother's polish, and then put the tires back on.

You need to unmount the tires because the stripper can and WILL eat rubber that it touches.

And wear gloves. Trust me.

Here's what the stripper does to paint/clear coat (this is the firewall of my wagon):

And after it sits for a few minutes, and a shot from the pressure washer....

 

[gymjunkie]

So basically, buy some new nicer rims. Gotcha lol

 

[MoistCabbage]

Ah, didn't even look at the picture last night. Yeah, the clear coat is gone and they're oxidized.

Removing the clear and polishing won't get you the factory look though. These rims were machine finished and cleared, not polished. Machine finish rims have the fine scoring marks left from machining still visible. They aren't reflective, and are only glossy because of the clear coat.

IMHO, if you want to keep stock rims on it, I'd either find a clean set of stock chrome rims, or have the current ones refinished. It can be done for ~$200 each, and they'll look just like they did when new.

 

[HUF]

The rim does not look brand-new, but it does not look very bad either. I would drive like that. Cleaning the brake dust out of those cavities IS the real pain.

 

[talismandave]

Since on the picture posted it looks like only the outer rim is bad, I would try a wire brush on a Dremel just in the bad spots.
What have you got to lose?
You could also just mask and paint the outer edge with a color that compliments the car color.