Alcoa aluminum wheel polishing?

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

I am missing something ...... I followed the link and found "use Mother's Power Ball" and not much else.

Is there some how-to info that I missed?

Not sure what link you followed? I clicked the link and there's TEXT that explains in very "general terms" that wheel polishing is not that hard to do and then there's 18 pictures showing what to do.

Here's a screenshot of where the link goes...

Granted, that's now how I would write an article on this forum, I would place a lot more specific step-by-step information explaining exactly what to do along with the correlating pictures in a linear fashion to make it easy to read and learn from because that's my writing style.

Could be the author, Calin Head is trapped or confined by the website interface he is forced to use?


Regardless, the link works and the info for using Mothers products is there.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

The sticker on the wheels simply says "Alcoa" no mention of durabright.

Here's your pictures, I downloaded them and then uploaded them to your free gallery here on AGO.

Sorry to say you DON'T have the Dura-Bright finish on these wheels. What you have is straight aluminum, or un-coated aluminum and from my experience you're going to have to at a minimum scrub them hard with a Scotchbrite pad to remove years of oxidation and then polish them out.

Actually, it's pretty easy to tell these are not coated but oxidized. The rust on the steel lug nuts and weathered chrome center caps is equal to the level of oxidation on the aluminum. These wheels have been neglected for years if not decades.


For a mirror finish you will need to sand them smooth and then remove your sanding marks and then polish to a mirror finish. For all the time, work and expense it will require to get into industrial aluminum polishing, it may be less costly to,

A: Take them to a company that specializes in aluminum restoration.

B: Buy new wheels.

 

[PNW Steve]

Thanks for the input Mike.

I agree with you that the wheels are in bad shape. The length of time of neglect, however, was less than two years. A handful of Winter trips over Snoqualmie Pass took them from nicely polished to flat grey and pitted.

I have been asking around for a pro to polish them for me and have struck out so far. Anyone here in the Walla Walla area want a polishing project?

 

[TobyD]

I know this is an old post. That said I signed up for this site to point out Alcoa wheels can be polished with an air buff and high speed polisher running 3000 rpm plus. I've mirror polished hundreds of Alcoa wheels. Will post pictures once I've studied how to.