My Alloy Wheels

Before

This is a picture of my alloy wheels as purchased for the grand sum of thirty pounds..... Ugh, what a state! The wheels really were in very poor condition, badly corroded with baked on brake dust. The wheels were from a scrapped Renault 5 Gordini.

After

This is what the wheels should look like! I haven't restored the centre-caps yet, but that's on my list of things to do.

I found this was the best method of cleaning the wheels:

  1. Remove the laquer from the wheels using a solvent such as cellulose thinners.
  2. Use an acidic alloy wheel cleaner on the wheels, scrubbing with a washing up brush. Repeat the cleaning of the wheels until no further change in appearance.
  3. At this stage, the wheels had many black coloured pits on the surface of them. The wheels were scratched quite badly in places.
  4. Rub the wheels down with fine wet-or-dry paper, regularly wetting the paper, and regularly changing the direction of the rubbing. Changing direction of the rubbing helps ensure that no deeper scratches are introduced and scratches from one pass of the paper are eliminated by the next pass.
  5. When the wheels were clean with an even surface they were polished. Initially I used Autosol chrome polish and a polishing bonnet in a drill. This was excruciatingly slow although it did work quite well. I then bought an alloy polishing kit from Frost Auto Restorations, which made the job much quicker and easier. I was soon able to make the wheels sparkle!
  6. Paint the back of the wheels with Hammerite (after priming with special primer).
  7. Laquer the front of the wheels.

Once the wheels were finished I got a set of 155 70R 13 Michelin Classic tyres fitted. Michelin Classics recently were awarded "Best Buy" by Which? Magazine.

Once fitted the wheels do make a small amount of difference to the handling of the car - it goes round corners slightly better at high speed. The wheels do enhance the appearance of the car greatly - much better than rusty steel rims! The wider tyres suit the proportions of the car nicely.

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