Options for Cleaning and Beautifying Rally Wheels

[jb3t]

I have been reading the "Restoring Rusty" thread religiously and am amazed at the amount of chemicals and spray paint (and a wire wheel) that the guy is using to clean up the parts on his truck. It looks great.

One thing that particularly caught my attention is when he cleaned up the rims and painted them black. While I want to keep my rims their original chrome color, I would like to clean them up. What do you guys recommend to do/use to get them to look sparkling new again?

[Eraser475]

When you refer to the rims as chrome, I assume you mean the trim ring and hub cap? The rim theirselves are a silver color. When i polish my trim rings and hubs, I use some turtle wax chrome restorer polish. It works pretty nicely. Comes in a small green bottle.

[Keith Seymore]

Wheel trim (chrome cap and/or stainless trim ring) can be cleaned using any kind of chrome polish or rubbing compound.

The steel rim itself is painted argent silver. Duplicolor works fine.

K

[jb3t]

Thanks… The above picture is exactly what we are going for.

Sounds like chrome cleaner and a little bit of spray paint. Thank you.

[jb3t]

Question....

Per the above picture, does the chrome cap come off so I can easily paint the rims? I also assume you taped the tires off.

Also, what type of rim prep work did you guys do? Mine look like the rims in the picture.

[Keith Seymore]

Yes - the centercap is held on with three small bolts.

You can either tape the tires off - or - paint the rims before mounting the tire.

Prep consists of either sandblasting or lots and lots of wet sanding.

K

[jb3t]

Thanks.... Think I'll have to do it all by hand as I've got no spares to put on the truck... Unless I put it up on blocks.

What does sandblasting cost?

[jb3t]

Update....

Did one tire today. Would have done two but no tire iron, different lugs, so I need to go to the store to get a socket. I'm up in New England so the weather is not great for spray paint but I dealt.

1. Gave them a good scrubbing and power washing. Washed them so well my valve stems now leak. I guess they were brittle.

2. Bought a wire brush set that attaches to my drill and I worked on the rust. It did a decent job getting into nooks and crannies. Going to hit Lowes to get another that's a little less rough.

3. Sanded the crap out of it with 200 grit. Wet and dry. Spot wire brushed. Sanded again with 200 and 400. Cleaned with wheel cleaner, and dried it. They were pretty smooth but not perfect.

4. Chrome cleaned the cap. Came out pretty good. Noticed that the base of the cap is a different material. Considers spraying it but held off.

5. Did 3 light coats of primer, followed by 3 light coats and 1 medium coat of Duplicolor chrome wheel paint. They came out Awesome. Used index cards to mask tire. It's 32 out so I brought them outside for a minute to spray and brought immediately back in to basement to dry. Seemed to work okay.

6. Painted the 3 little nuts that hold on the hub.

7. Going to clear coat them soon.

Pics to come.

[Keith Seymore]

Found these while looking for something else.

The results of pure elbow grease....

K

[jb3t]

Here are the results of my rally wheel rattle-can restoration project.

In short, I used a 3M rust remover wheel and attached to my drill, 200 and 400 grit sandpaper, Chrome wheel cleaner, scotch bright pads, and a little bit of rubbing alcohol to strip the rust and clean the wheels. Then, three coats of primer and four coats of finish. Still need to put on the clear coat. Took me about 45 minutes to strip each wheel and then a total of about two hours to paint.

I am up in New England so the weather is not great for this. Luckily had a nice 50 degree Christmas Day so my son and I were running in-and-out of the house between each course of dinner.

Just need to now invest in some new lug nuts. I am sort of thinking I might want some contrast with he lug nuts. Wondering if black ones look good?

[RedRider]

Great info on this thread, but I need help with some dings on the rally rims I'm restoring:



Should I start with sanding? filler? I was thinking the rust remover wheel mentioned above. Any suggestions?

[jhama78]

Im working on cleaning up a set for my GMC right now, heres the link to replacement center cap screws if you want to replace yours. I got 100 shipped for @ 15 bucks.

https://www.albanycountyfasteners.co...p/6000-012.htm

[RedRider]

Originally Posted by jhama78

Im working on cleaning up a set for my GMC right now, heres the link to replacement center cap screws if you want to replace yours. I got 100 shipped for @ 15 bucks.

https://www.albanycountyfasteners.co...p/6000-012.htm

Thanks for the info. Dumb question but are these special screws? Couldn't I just get them at Home Depot?

Also, where did you get caps? Any suggestions? I was thinking Ebay.

[jhama78]

There's nothing extremely special about them threadwise, the head is a little different and I've never seen them at a normal hardware store. There was somebody a while back in the classifieds on here selling sets of 12 screws for 11 bucks shipped in case you dont want to buy a box of 25 for 3.75 but I'm not sure why anybody would spend 11 instead of 3.75.

I got caps from a couple sets of wheels I have picked up, but ebay is as good a place as any to find them.

[RedRider]

I'm interested to see how your wheels turn out, keep us posted!

[andyh1956]

Originally Posted by jb3t

Here are the results of my rally wheel rattle-can restoration project.

In short, I used a 3M rust remover wheel and attached to my drill, 200 and 400 grit sandpaper, Chrome wheel cleaner, scotch bright pads, and a little bit of rubbing alcohol to strip the rust and clean the wheels. Then, three coats of primer and four coats of finish. Still need to put on the clear coat. Took me about 45 minutes to strip each wheel and then a total of about two hours to paint.

I am up in New England so the weather is not great for this. Luckily had a nice 50 degree Christmas Day so my son and I were running in-and-out of the house between each course of dinner.

Just need to now invest in some new lug nuts. I am sort of thinking I might want some contrast with he lug nuts. Wondering if black ones look good?

Attachment 1340751 Attachment 1340752

Attachment 1340753 Attachment 1340754

Hey those are looking great! I see two different wheels there, looks like a van Rallye & a pickup Rallye.
Those screws that hold the caps on are self threading. A little dab of RTV around the back of the cap at the screw boss will hold them on good & keep the screw from loosening.

[mgreene]

I like mine. It took a surprising amount of work to smooth with a wire wheel, rust proof, prime and paint, but I get this goofy smile whenever I look at my truck.

And of course, the price was right.