Tarnished Aluminum

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Wolf-Strong

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My wheels are BMW factory bare aluminum, and, unfortuneatly, are tarnished to a complete dull finish. I have tried Meguiar's Hot Rims Mag/Alum polish, but to no avail. I can use Mother's Powerball, hold it there, and buff for 3 minutes to bring back a little shine, but it is tarnished pretty bad.

I was looking into some of the P21s metal polishes with high hopes seeing the quality of their other products, but wanted to know if you guys know of anything else.
 
I haven't tried the Meguiar's Hot Rims but I have had a lot of success with Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish. Do you have an electric drill to use with the Powerball? The speeds of a battery drill didn't seem to have enough power. I have an original Powerball (big) but now that the mini is out, I think it is time to upgrade. Last year I bought some attchments for my rotary so I could use some polishing bobs and wheels on and that makes short work of oxidation. Heat is the key when working on getting aluminum to shine. Do you think the wheels are stained with water marks or etched from using a strong wheel / tire cleaner or is it simple oxidation? I have polished many wheels by hand and while it's not as good by machine, the results were a lot better. If they are infact stained, it's just going to take a lot of time to clean them up. Make sure that you seal them with some type of Wheel Sealant when they are done to keep the shine there longer. I haven't used P21S metal polishes, I didn't know they had a polish. They have a polishing soap that may help get rid of the top layer but you'll still have to polish later on. I have also used Semi-chrome on wheels and that worked as well. I'm not too fond of tube polishes because I mainly work on RV wheels and the tubes are just a pain to work with on huge wheels... Good luck.
 
I had an occasion to try and make my camper shell, made of bare aluminum, shine a little brighter a few weeks ago. I used a lot of metal polishes, Poorboy's ProPolish, and finally I used Poorboy's SSR3 follwed up with ProPolish. It did help. Of couse I used this with a rotary and PC. I did not use a power ball. It is something to consider, though. Try it on a spot and see if it might help.
 
I would never use that wheel cleaner on bare aluminum, I use only P21S on my polished/uncoated wheels. I would suggest contacting Mothers as they make a harsher (yellow) Powerball mini to help cut thru oxidation. Then look to the Wolfgang Metalwerks kit to bring them back up to par.
 
killrwheels@autogeek said:
I would suggest contacting Mothers as they make a harsher (yellow) Powerball mini to help cut thru oxidation. Then look to the Wolfgang Metalwerks kit to bring them back up to par.
Click to expand...

Or even wetsanding...I've had good luck removing stain with 2000 grit paper.

+1 for Metallwerks they have great metal polishes and the Aluminum Compound might actually be strong enough to remove the stains. Here is Metallwerks kit at work:

metallwerk_metal_polish.jpg






Like Budman3 said though, your gonna need power to get the best results a rotary or electric drill will be your best bet.

Good Luck!
 
For the record, I have used Mother's polish and it wasn't strong enough. Infact, it is just a tad less agressive than the Meguiar's Hot Rims polish from my experience. I do also have a red Powerball, but that just didn't have enough punch to get the job done and is NO good at 90° angles. It helped, but was far good. I do have a rotary at my disposal if that is needed.

These are the type of wheels I am dealing with FYI:
IMG_0337.jpg

IMG_0338.jpg


After looking at those Wolfgang kits, I'm sure they work great, but I don't have $150-$180 to drop on that
 
i have a box truck with extruded alum trim on the bottom of the box, and i have used "00" steel wool on it to bring back the shine and that worked wonderful, i used it with mothers polish, not sure if this would be too aggressive for your purpose but it worked wonders for me
 
Sigh

It seems I better start saving up $170. You guys are making me go broke! Don't worry though, its a good thing! :D
 
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