Cleaning aluminum rims...?

How about some baddly baddly abused aluminum rims on a conrete mixer? The only thing that still shines on the truck is the drives and the stack, all the other rims are bad I mean horrible looking. I mean they look like the dark color on the top part of the forum and are all rough. Are they past any rescue or is there something that can be put on em to shine em up? Got a picture on here of the truck, but can't really see how bad the rims are, Ill try an take a close up picture of em tomorrow.

 

Suppose it would help if I put the crappy picture up eh?

 

I would use a Powerball*(just not the Mothers polish),it should do a fair job on the pipes as well
That Hog polish or whatever its called is expensive and really no better then
a tub of any other brand.

The finished results will differ between products used,Meguiars is my preferred brand.
Gord's is also a good one thats well known in some circles.

 

Ya ll use that concrete release stuff for cleaning that pump right?
Its likely the wheels have been etched by that acid.
It will take alot of cut work ($$)to find clean metal on those mixer wheels

Personally I would buy a can of Neverdull* wading and then be settled on the
results from that.

 

For me, I prefer using the acid to remove the flash, and then a mothers power ball will get the job done just fine. If you cant get it done that way, take em to a place that has a polishing machine, you will be glad you did. Then just keep it mantained.

 

Here's a close up of the steer and my pusher rims, im guessing that they are etched because they are pretty rough.

 

I had my tanks and wheels done by a guy in GA and he used fine sandpaper (I think around 300) on a D/A sander. Then he polished with a buffing wheel and a compound bar, then buffed with a rag and cream polish.

They had been let go and needed a heavy cut to get through it.

The pic attached was a couple of years after. I just buffed it out every 6 months with a polish and a power ball.

Bill

 

The only way your going to fix those is to have them machine finished. You can sand them by hand and polish but no way your actually going to do that. WAY too much work.

Robotic wheel polishing

 

Yeah that's what I figured, they look so #### nasty. They were that way when I got the truck, sucks cause we got one truck in the fleet that has nice polished wheels and it looks sharp going down the road having 14 rims shining. Oh well, I'm not gonna put that much work into them wheels I guess.

 

I have considered new rims. KW has/had? a sale on them here in town. $289 per rim for brand new Alcoa rims...I figured depending on the price to refinish them and if they can be refinished - it was an option....