I just started the project, I have my left rear wheel finished...

I'll be snapping a picture right now and posting it after dinner!!!

For anyone interested I'll list my steps..

Lemme seeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Sorry that got delayed. Had to go out for some supplies for the night heh.

<Dan at 12:00 tonight> "hey man, far out - tem thur wheels are spinnin, and teh car ain't even movin... whoaaa far out..."

bwaahahahhaahhaaaaaaaa

Hey u done yet?

Yep, sorry takes forever to upload them to my comp.

My camera doesn't do it much justice, it's only a 1 megapixel. I'll get my dads 4 megapixel cam tomorrow and get some better pics.

1 sec!!!

Left rear wheel...compare it to the left front!!

local://upfiles/1627/Sp450468427.jpg

Couldn't angle nothing right to get a picture of a reflection, but it's a perfect mirror reflection now...no more crappy looking paint!!

Ahhh....so much better hahah

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its hard to tell a diff with the pics, not doin it justice

Looks better right.... ;)

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damn looks good, why not polish everything! cmon its not like its hard work!!!! :P

Wooohooo, I decided to try a few more steps and holy CRAP. The finish is absolutely amazing...

I'm going to post some before and after pics now...

Stock finish

local://upfiles/1627/Db846951276.jpg

I missed a spot with my mothers polish, if you can see it...good for you, shut up!!

:D

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Here's the 2000 grit finish....

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if you wouldn't mind, could you lemme know what you did?

It's a lot of work by hand, if you're really interested I'll type out a how-to when I get home from work..

I'd appreciate it

If you have a dremel...then this will be cake.

But by hand I used 80 or 60 grit (can't remember) to get the paint off. It takes quite a bit of sanding, but this is the most difficult and time consuming part of the job, once you finish getting the paint off it goes pretty quick.

I then used 180 grit. Sanded it until I saw all the deep scratches were gone.

Spent a while with 220, then 400, 800....1000, 1500, 2000.

You can use 800-2000 wet or dry. I prefered the finish I got dry sanding, although with other aluminum wheels I've polished I got my best results wet sanding, odd, but whatever works best for you.

The trick is to spend the most time possibly sanding with 220, this will work out the rest of your nasty scratches, it will be rather easy with 400 grit to make it start to look smooth, the higher you go the smoother and more 'blurry' the finish will look. Slap on some aluminum polish (mothers works best for me). If you aren't satisfied with the finish, remember..you can always go back to 220 and start over until your happy!!

cool, thanks...i do have a dremel, sweet

The ONLY downside is maitnence. With your wheels now, you just scrub'em clean and shine your tires...

Now I'm polishing my wheels with Mothers, then putting a coat of wax on them to help preserve the finish. A little mothers will go a long way, takes a little effort but it really looks awesome in the sun, especially for those of us who aren't big on chrome wheels.

I just finished polishing my 3rd wheel. I took a few different steps. I used some heavy duty paint stripper rather than sanding to see if it would make for a better finish.

Result:

The finish is equal to my other 2 hand sanded wheels, but it took less work to do so. You have to be real carefull not to strip the clear coat off the rest of the wheel. I didn't use any care because eventually I plan on polishing the entire wheel or just getting rid of the car in the near future.

great job Dan, looks a lot better than stock

Damn, Dan! You got me thinking now. But i kinda like the flat look of the lip, hmmmmm. Will see what tomorrow brings.

PS did you pull the wheel off or tape of the painted center section?

Don't ya hate when that happens?

I didn't bother taping anything. I was just semi-carefull. I found some spots where I stripped the clear coat. I can always mask it off and spray it again. Anyways, I noticed the factory clear coat is yellowing a tad, I just might strip the rest of it and re-clear it or leave it cast aluminum.

I'm going to try uploading the newest & best pictures again...

Finished left rear wheel.

local://upfiles/1627/098336C69AF748FC97B49F86919058ED.jpg

Good pic for the reflection. I missed a few spots polishing, it was getting late & I was getting lazy ;)

I'll roll her out of the garage today and snap some pics in the sun.

local://upfiles/1627/363C008C7DF94B408E5414EE232A98A1.jpg

Blah, still not happy with the picture, I'm just going to pick up my better digital camera from work in a little bit.

local://upfiles/1627/A83DBDC19E7D4FCD8B58CD4FEE9214BF.jpg

[:@]

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Good pics!!! Finally!!!

local://upfiles/1627/F4016B52D153448CAE200AE98AE1D089.jpg

[8D]

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I like the last on edoes a good job.

So what are you doing next weekend? LOL, just kidding.

About how long did it take you? Suck part of my weekends is all the house work I have to help with, so time is of the essence. Maybe I will just make it a winter project, that way I won't drive it during the winter again!!!

I'm a bonehead and sanded the paint off the driver side wheels, then worked all the scratches out and slowly got a good mirror finish. That took about 6-8 hours total.

On the passenger side, I was sick when I started to sand them, got too tired and busted out the paint stripper. Stripping the paint took about 20 minutes.

After I stripped the paint, the aluminum had a hazy stock finish. So I took 220 grit, sanded it good, went to 800 wet, 1000, 1500, 2000.
That took about 20-25 minutes per wheel. I could make them shine and reflect even better if I wasn't so lazy. If I wasn't so stubborn and realized how much easier it was just to use paint stripper...[:@]