Tips on cleaning polished aluminum?

[Chisoxguy13]

Anyone got any good tips/tricks to clean polished wheels. Got some Mothers aluminum polish and wow my fingers hurt already from all the work I've done the last couple of days. Didn't think it would be that difficult. Been working on one wheel for 30 min and it's not even close to being done.

[Timdelta]

Get one of the polishing foam things from any auto parts place or Walmart and stick it in the drill. Should be with all the wheel cleaning stuff. Don't know the name and have never used one myself but the time is coming.

[dougmcp]

Get a Mother's Powerball, Mini or Power Cone for the job. https://store.mothers.com/index.php?cPath=25

[wilster734]

the mother's kit you buy worked for me on some alum pieces i had on a motor think you can't go wrong with it.

[freddmc]

I would go to tool house supplier (probably not an auto parts store) like Grizzly tools(www.grizzlytools.com) and get some polishing equipment to work in either your drill, angle grinder(I use a 7 in angle grinder)or motor of some sort. Ideally you need something with some speed(2000 RPM) and some power so you can put some pressure on the polishing pad. There are a number of place on the net that sell this stuff. Do a google seach for metal polishing. Also get the "white" polishing compound. Doing it by hand takes forever. The equipment to do it properly will cost you less than $20 (assuming you have a drll/grinder etc) and it is WAY faster.

Good luck

Fred

[Chisoxguy13]

I already had the one that looks kind of like an arrow. Seemed like it was working easier by hand. Still have two more wheels to do tomorrow. Will try a few things different and see if that works. Even took one wheel off the cart and sat inside watching tv while I did it. Don't think these things have ever been polished and they are very oxidized. Two of them look pretty good now though. Still need to go ove them one more time. Never thought getting a cart could be this much work. Ha Ha. Spent the last three days scraping, sanding, painting, waxing, and polishing it. I'm beat and my fingers are thrashed.

[freddmc]

I know exactly how you feel. Last year I polished the al wheels on my wifes Xterra. Had to unmount the tires, then polish. Then I clear powder coated them so I wouldn't have to do it again.

You might consider that.

Good luck

Fred

[K9Kev]

There are a ton of Aluminum polishes out there on the market and everyone has a different opinion of what works best.

One little trick I learned from a guy was:

After applying your polish and it starts to turn black, removing that black reside takes forever so....use some cornstarch or flour on your polishing rag and it seems to suck up all that reside faster. It also appears to leave a really clean, clear shine.

Just my .02

Good luck...

K9

[Chisoxguy13]

Too bad there's not a dip for aluminum oxidation like you see the commercias where they put the brass spoon in that liquid and wala... Looks like new. Think I'll stay on top of these rims so it's never this hard again.

[adamj12b]

If you use one of the power balls, make sure you are paying attention. sometimes they like to grab onto the spokes of some wheels and end up smashing the spinning drill chuck into the aluminum wheel!! They work great except for that.

-Adam