RollTideTA

Hi guys,

If you have OEM polished wheels you know how hazy and unattractive they
can look. If you have tried to polish them yourself, you have probably
gotten even more frustrated when you find out they are clear coated from the factory.

Come to find out, its really not expensive or very hard to strip and then
repolish the wheels to get a much deeper/attractive shine.

Things you'll need:
-Stripper Solvent (We used Kleen Strip Auto Stripper from AutoZone)
-Safety Gear (Chemical resistant gloves & regular safety glasses; Lowes etc)
-Small paint brush(es) (to apply the stripper)
-Polishing tools (Mother's Powerball on a corded drill worked great for us)
-Well Ventilated Work Area

Before U Start:
My wheels were in the garage in storage, but it should go without saying
that they have to be off the car to do this You also need to remove
the center caps and any wheel weights on the front face of the wheel.

Here is a before pic:

1 Apply Stripper- With your safety gear on (it will burn your skin), poor
a little of your solvent into a small container and brush it onto your wheel.
Use alot of it... Cake it on. Only brush in one direction (back and forth will
not work nearly as well). After you get the whole wheel coated generously,
let it sit for 15-45 minutes or until it is completely blistered/bubbled up.

2 Remove Stripper- The next step is to remove the stripper from the
wheel. DO NOT follow the directions on the stripper. DO NOT try to wipe
this stuff off using a rag, and especially do not use steel wool, unless u
want to do a lot of polishing later on with buff wheels and rouge compounds.
(This happened on our first wheel and it took me a long time to get all the
fine scratched off). Take your wheel outside and hose it off with high
pressure water, a garden hose with nozzle worked great for us, but a
pressure washer would be ideal.

3 Dry & Inspect- After u have completely washed the wheel off with
water and u can see no more trace of the blisters or residue on the wheel,
dry it off and inspect the finish. If u can still see any of the clear on it, (will
look spotty) repeat steps 1-3 again until you don't. We only had to coat
each wheel twice to completely remove the clear coat.


At this point, you can see below that there is already a huge difference in finish quality.



4 Polish- Now all you have to do is polish them. We used a Dewalt
corded drill rated at 0-2500 RPMs and a Mothers Powerball. Follow the
directions that came with the powerball and use the liquid aluminum power
polish that is made to work with it. Then take a clean soft cloth and buff it
off by hand.

If you find that you have stubborn stains or scratches that the mothers isn't
taking off, you may want to pick up the drill polishing kit from sears (9.95).
It comes with 3 buffing wheels, 4 rouge compounds and instructions on the
back. It is important to start with the most course compound: black emery,
then white rouge, then red rouge from this kit. You will also find simichrome
applied by hand to be very good at taking off the stained looking places.


Here are the final results:



These look WAYYY better now. Very worthwhile mod on these wheels. You
will be looking at more upkeep but at least you will be able to have a shine
that is much closer to the deep, wet, mirror reflective chrome look.

nhra-trans-am

iTrader: (103)

What a difference. Nice write-up

SS4Matt

iTrader: (4)

holy moly those look a million times better! very nice write-up as well! you could probably make a quick couple bucks doin that on the side!

HotWhipT/A

iTrader: (31)

I know those are the WS6 wheels. I want to make sure my rims are chrome. They are the 16's. Don't mind the center cap...I sanded it all down to redo it and figured out that it is partly metel. Sooooo, I polished them up to a mirror. Just like I wanted! Oh and no.....my rim doesn't have curb rash.

phoenixv8

iTrader: (1)

Thats sweet!!!!!!!

BizZzatch350

iTrader: (33)

Thanks for the awesome right up man, I have two W6 wheels on my car that have seen better days, one the finish is super dull the other has chips in the clear coat.

delinquent543

wait, so this is for the rims that come with a trans am ws6?

RollTideTA

Yes, these are the rims that came on my car from the factory. They have been in storage since I replaced them about a year ago. We have several firebirds though and I just wanted to try this out and see how it worked. I may get a slick or drag radial setup put on these... or i dunno who knows lol

69huggerZ

iTrader: (1)

So about how long did this take from start to finish?

RollTideTA

3-4 hours without breaking much of a sweat

SS4Matt

iTrader: (4)

nice array of car's in your stable man! very nice!!

lt1_man

I was wondering if I could do this with my stock 16 inch rims. They are off of my 1995 formula they didnt come polished but if I strip off the silver I can polish the rim right? If its aluminum I dont see why not.
-Thanks Brandon

hondo

iTrader: (2)

you can, but there will be more steps and ALOT of work to get the raw aluminum polished nicely.

Oh and nice write up rolltide thanks

RollTideTA

LT1_man: Yeah, you would be able to, but it would be alot more work as hondo said because you would probably have to sand them smooth going from coarse to finer sand papers (up to around 1200 grit) before you started using the buffer tools and buffing rouges and then polishing. It might be pretty smooth under there, you just never know for sure till you try. I have thought about trying it on some old swirlies from our 94 TA, lol but I dunno if it would be worth the effort just to see.

Thanks for all the compliments, hopes this helps someone else avoid some mistakes we made.

FaztLT1

iTrader: (8)

Nice write up! I have a spare set of WS6 wheels in my garage that I might have to try this on Those look great! Have you considered applying Zoop seal to try and keep them looking that good?

delinquent543

i know this is a stupid question, but aernt the ws6 rims chrome? because if they are, doesnt the chemical strip off the chrome plating? if they aernt then that would make sense.. but i was under the impression the rims were chrome.. im a newb, i know

RollTideTA

Nope, some aftermarket WS6 replica wheels come in a chrome finish, but all OEM WS6 wheels (17") are polished and then clear-coated. Now the 16" version of the wheel that says ABS on the center cap came in chrome or painted, and NOT polished.

RollTideTA

Yes, I have! I may try that and see how it affects the finish. I've heard the hazing isn't as bad as clear coat. If I do it, I'll let everyone see a before and after to show any hazing.

lt1_man

Yeah I know how to polish, on the side I polish up intakes and other misc. items. So if anyone needs any polishing I can do it for cheap. I was wondering though if I smooth the rims and all can I buff it out with a drill or will I need something with more rpms. I buff the intakes and stuff with a bench buffer but cant fit into the rim spokes.
-Thanks Brandon

RollTideTA

You will either need a pretty fast drill (up around 2500 or better) or get a nice quality air die grinder and buff set from eastwood. The right tools make all the difference in the world and will save lots of labor hours too