hey all, I have a buddy of mine that wants me to clean up his rims. They are aluminum rims and they havent been cleaned for about a year. They are very bad and are corroded, pitted, oxided, brake dust damage, salt and water damage and about everything else you can think of that could happened to a rim has. My question is how can i clean these rims to make them look new or as new as i can? Names of products would be nice and steps to go about cleaning them up also. Thanks for all your help guys and advice you can give me!

 

They are raw aluminum? When you polish them do you get black residue? If so they are raw aluminum. If they're truly in THAT bad of shape that a dedicated metal polish won't work by itself then get yourself some #0000 steel wool and a quality metal polish and use the steel wool as your rag. This will leave them with more of a satin shine than a gloss but it should do a good job of cleaning them. To shine them back up, use something like the Mother's Powerball or similar (Lake Country makes wool polishing *****, Obsessive Detail carries the Dura Ball and is on clearance) and your metal polish of choice. It make take more than one applications depending on how bad the wheels are. Now for the polish of choice... I've used a few myself. I've used Optimum Metal Polish, all of the English Custom Polishes (still playing with them, not sure I like them yet), Mothers Power Metal, Mother Mag and Aluminum (paste, not good for powerballs) Adam's Metal Polish 1 and 2, and Heavy Metal (3 different grades available). Optimum is a one step cleaner, polish and protection in one but depending on how severe the wheels are this may not be enough but it is a good maintenance polish. Another one similar to that is Obsessive Detail's Metal Rx which is the same all-in-one concept and I've sene great results with it from a member here. Heavy Metal makes nice polishes but it's been a long time since I've used any but I remember really liking the blue kind grade. Adam's Metal Polish 1 and 2 are nice with 1 being more aggressive and 2 being less, leaving a nicer shine. I was never impressed with the Mother's Power Metal.

 

yea they are raw aluminum. Thanks for your input and help. I figured that i would have to use some steel wool and then a good metal polish. This is a big help cause i really just am at a lose as where to start on them. thanks again