Wheel Restoration - Deep Wheel Cleaner

[Novice3Clnr]

Need some help. Started restoring an old car - started with wheels.

 

Lots of neglect and tons of built up brake dust & tar on the barrels. Face of wheels are clear coated over paint or polished Al, divots clear coated over textured Al surface.

 

Started out washing the wheel with nylon scrub brush and dish soap.  Got some dirt and grime off.  Here is the before shot.

 

 

Then applied some Deep Wheel Cleaner. Scrubbed barrels with a nylon brush figuring I was metal polishing later anyway.  DWC in action - it is working!

 

 

Kept applying DWC and periodic scrubbing over about an hour. Final, active, firm scrubbing with a Scotch-brite scouring pad and then rinse.  This is the result.

 

 

 

So I am wondering what more can be done?  There are some raised black splotches that look to be tar like.  I scraped the larger ones off, but more remain.  There is some white oxidation too.

 

The face of the wheel is a different story. They appear to be painted or highly polished and clear coated.  Most of the normal "dirt" came off with washing, but the "divots" had caked on brake dust.  {sorry about the bad shot - too much zoom!}

 

 

So I sprayed DWC in the dviots and scrubbed them with a very soft toothbrush. Repeated aplications (3-4?) and scrubbing seemed to work pretty well. Most of the divots (75%) look like this with maybe one or two very small spots. Pretty amazing that DWC was able to disolve the hardened, caked on stuff!

 

 

A few places still have some build up, but most of the gunk was taken off by DWC! Pretty darn amazing!

 

 

Found some scratches on the clear coat when I was done, but was able to polish them out with the buffer and some polishing compound.  Have a few spots where clear coat is chipped or gone so may need some touch up there.

 

So where do I go from here?  Any kind of help is appreciated!

Edited July 21, 2014 by Novice3Clnr

[2quikta]

Strip down and polish/paint back........or just get them powder coated. If the clearcoat is failing, all you can do is make them look "better" IMO

[Novice3Clnr]

Thanks 2Quikta!  Much appreciated.  How do I strip them?

 

You mean one can't remove the clear coat and buff then reapply?

Edited July 22, 2014 by Novice3Clnr