Hoseless detailers on here, what's your wheel regime?

JWilliams.RadiantDetail

JWilliams.RadiantDetail

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I can do everything on a car very well without water, but I haven't came up with a way to do wheels beyond just an okay level. Good enough for most of my clients, but I don't like to settle for okay. I detail in So Cal so I'm hose less due to the water restrictions. Right now I use my waterless wash to wipe down the wheels, but they don't come like I like. I have Wheel Woolies and I want to get one of those drill brush attachment thingies. With IronX or any of the iron removing wheel cleaners would a 2 gallon contract pump sprayer spray hard enough to effectively remove the product? I haven't used an iron remover since I ditched my hose a year and a half ago. But I seem to remember needing a good amount of water pressure to get it all off.

This is really the last piece I need to get to get down to where I'll be happy with the quality of my work.
 
There is an eco friendly product that AG no longer carries that works awesome. Their instructions were spray on, wipe with MF towel, dry with another MF towel.

Thats what I would recommend if I was interested in warning or ban for mentioning a product that AG does not carry.
 
Gotta give you guys credit out there double the work.
 
Depending on how dirty the wheels are, spray them with D114 or APC and agitate the barrels with your Wheel Woolies. Then clean the face with a dedicated mitt, pad, or microfiber towel. Then spray the wheel with a little pump sprayer. Next use a tampico spoke brush like the 1 in my picture and wrap a microfiber towel around it.

View attachment 39702

You're going to need the towel to stay on the brush, so you can either go the overly carefull way and use 2 rubber bands, or 2 carefully placed zip ties making sure you're aware of them at all times in order to prevent an accidental scratch on the wheels. Use that wrapped tampico brush to hit the barrels and get them clean and dry.

And then keep that brush, along with your other wheel cleaning brushes & mitts in their own bucket with a grit guard and soapy water + lid.
 
I hardly ever use the pressure from a hose when cleaning a vehicle.

In regards to wheels, tires, and wheel wells, I use a tandem of a degreaser and an all purpose cleaner and old towels or throw away rags for the bulk of the cleaning.
I find that using these products in tandem offers better results than either one can offer by itself.
The one thing you have to keep in mind is that degreasers and all purpose cleaners often have color additive and can contain flash chemical for fast drying.
If you are not right on top of your work, the color additive can dry and stain quickly.

Then I follow up with an application of tire dressing followed by some time of finish for the wheels.
Typically a detail spray, spray wax, or a glass cleaner for the wheels.
Remember, you can always have a spray bottle of just water, when water is absolutely needed.
 
Steam. Need a high pressure system, but works great if you do.
 
I use a 2 gallon pump for my cleaning of wheels and it works great but I do use DUB/3D BDX which helps out alot! I have wheel woolies and other brushes with great success using the 2 gallon hand pump....GO FOR IT!

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk
 
I should also mention that it also works great to clean and rinse the tires when using Bleache White and Mothers tire brush too!

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk
 
When I clean just my wheels, I spray my cleaner, then scrub and then rinse them from a bucket of water. Just one bucket of water works.
All you need is a travel bucket, or two, of water.
 
Thanks Eldorado2k and everyone else who replied, I think I'm going to order Sonax Fallout Cleaner and see if I can manage to decontaminate an entire car using that + a 2 gallon pump sprayer.
 
How are you guys doing severely neglected BMW or Audi wheels with caked and baked on brake dust without acid/degreaser and a pressure washer? Some of the wheels I see would NEVER get clean with just a rinseless solution or an all purpose cleaner.
 
Nicholas@Autowerx said:
How are you guys doing severely neglected BMW or Audi wheels with caked and baked on brake dust without acid/degreaser and a pressure washer? Some of the wheels I see would NEVER get clean with just a rinseless solution or an all purpose cleaner.
Click to expand...


Brown Royal.
 
Nicholas@Autowerx said:
How are you guys doing severely neglected BMW or Audi wheels with caked and baked on brake dust without acid/degreaser and a pressure washer? Some of the wheels I see would NEVER get clean with just a rinseless solution or an all purpose cleaner.
Click to expand...

Something like Iron X + a Wheel Woolie or Speed Brush to clean the wheels. What I was unsure of was if a pump sprayer would be strong enough to rinse off whatever I used to clean the wheels. Apparently by this thread a sprayer will suffice to do that. Knowing that I know I'll just have to do more scrubbing since the sprayer won't put out enough PSI to blast stuff off the wheels on it's own. Not 100% the way I'd want to do it, but with the water restrictions out here I don't have many options.
 
I can usually get away with cleaning wheels, tires and barrels with s couple buckets of water and a lot of cleaners, brushes, and towels (running water and my pressure washer is usually preferred), but wheel wells are another story, especially I winter. If I have to rinseless wash a car I tell the customers that the wheel wells won't get done; most of them will have 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of gravel and cinder rocks in them from the snow removal and I wouldn't even try to remove that without running water.

There are limits.
 
How does Megs acid free compare to brown royal? I have not used either...

Does brown royal work on really nasty wheels?
 
Nicholas@Autowerx said:
Dude.

Duuuuuuuuude.

Just tried this stuff for the first time today. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Right on👍🏽



7.3powerstroke said:
How does Megs acid free compare to brown royal? I have not used either...

Does brown royal work on really nasty wheels?
Click to expand...

On really nasty wheels, Megs Acid Free does not compare to Brown Royal. There's times when even Wheel Brightener doesn't compare to it.

Yes, it works on really nasty wheels. Full strength = nuclear power.
 
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