My Gottis are looking a little bit worse for wear. I got a dremel with polishing heads last night and plan to try to polish them up real nice, the outter rings are polished steel , the inner wheel is aluminum. What is a good method for cleaning and polishing? I want them to SHINE! I had thought about chroming them but it is cost prohibitve. Any help would be appreciated.

 

If the Gottis are clearcoated and anodized you will need to strip clearcoat with a good aircraft quality stripper. EasyOff oven cleaner will ease removal of the anodizing followed by progressively finer abrasives to smooth and polish the aluminum. Finish with jeweler's rouge or Mother's aluminum polish. The dremel may be a little lightweight for this job but it's worth a try. Take your time and they will SHINE! I really prefer the appearance of polished over chrome wheels.

 

How do I tellif they are anodized? The clearcoating has come off of its own accord. There is some serious rough stuff on the surfaces that are not flat on the wheel center, I have ground it out with the dremel to a sort of polished state, I need to go and look at some better bits for the dremel to cover a wider area and smooth it out more.
Ill post pics soon.

 

The manufacturer or a commercial wheel refinisher could provide info re the surface prep on your wheels. If you have "serious rough stuff" it sounds like oxidation or some other surface degradation that will require aggressive removal steps similar to what you're doing. But I would try the EasyOff first. I've removed anodizing on Fuchs wheels - it's a very hard matte finish which is highly resistant to removal. Repeated applications of the EasyOff cleaner and abrasives will take it off and allow the aluminum to be brought up to a brilliant shine.

 

I have used the steel brush type bit for the dremel and it is doing a great job, I am getting down to a surface which is highly pitted, very very small pits tightly arranged, almost like it is how the metal should look. I am polishing it and it comes up pretty well. I am trying to think of a way to smooth it out and am guessing that i will need to just keep using finer and finer bits until it is smooth.
The wheel I am working on looks better already, but it is going to take about 2 days per rim I suppose.

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by 944GASM:
<strong>...going to take about 2 days per rim I suppose.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica"><img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> wow you have WAY more patience than i do!!

 

8 days, a month of weekends, not a long time to have rims that look great if you ask me.

If I had $2k to drop on new rims and tires I would, but I just bought property on the beach in Swans Neck NC and have to get my Range Rover in shape for allt he 4 wheel action it will see as a result.

SO, I gotta be patient.

 

It IS a lot of work but it'll be well worth it.

Take some before/after pic's.

 

check out the polishing/smoothing kits from the eastwood company. You need a 3K-5K rpm drill. The dremel is too fast and it will prolly burn up. Drill is faster too.