Aluminum rims corroding, leaking air, help needed

[Scooterwrench]

White rouge on a canton flannel buff will put an almost chrome finish on aluminum. You can drive it with a cordless drill. Works great on brass and steel too. On steel it works best with a spiral sewn muslin buff,they're a little more aggressive.

 

[Hipster]

Lemme tell you about weeding out clowns. Y'all have heard me complain about can't get good people in the door where I work. Wanna weed someone out? Put them in a truck and tell them you only get paid for what you load. The weak ones peter out in the first shift or two. Produce, or starve. This really should be the way of the world..

Richard

I agree, non -perfomance not being an option, makes the process easy. Let someone hear "Not my job" and see who's leaving next lol

 

[Hipster]

Decades ago, tire shop looking for a leak on a tire I had on my '92 ECLB when I was still running Centerlines. Instead of a bottle of soapy water, he sprayed what looked like friggin Super Clean. Where it touched the wheel turned white immediately and nothing I had would remove it.

It turned out the leak wasn't the tire but the wheel had cracked along the inside bead. A repair shop welded it up for me and turned me onto Wenol polish. Just a small dab of it wiped on with a finger tip removed that white "stain" almost immediately. Magical stuff.

Gotta be really careful with acid-based cleaners and aluminum wheels, especially wheels with no coating on them (like Centerlines.) I recently bought some Wheely Clean and the "ready to use" version is like 33% acid, it's OK on the Centerlines if you don't leave it on them. You definitely need to polish afterwards (I still need to do this) but I did just buy a big can of Wenol that should last the rest of my life. The Wheely Clean stuff took months and months of caked-on brake dust off like it was nothing.

Richard

Alot of those acids, like the stuff the truckers use on their polished stuff, you have to be at the ready with the garden hose, 30 seconds will destroy stuff. Used to use trucker grade stuff on polished Harley engines and billet wheels, works good if immediately rinsed. I know old thread but for whatever reason they are popping up .

 

[Hipster]

white rouge mixed with diesel or Kero is very much like most of the commercially available polishes, but you can tailor your own consistency /cut. It's what the pro's use to polish a 12' tall x43' long polished chicken hauler.

 

[Scooterwrench]

white rouge mixed with diesel or Kero is very much like most of the commercially available polishes, but you can tailor your own consistency /cut. It's what the pro's use to polish a 12' tall x43' long polished chicken hauler.

The binder in most stick compounds is paraffin wax which can be liquified with naptha or mineral spirits. When I'm polishing brass clock parts I use mineral spirits to remove the wax residue before lacquering.

3M makes an aluminum polish they label as aluminum polish and restorer, I buy it from NAPA. It is a soupy paste that smells like linseed oil. I used lots of it on a chopper I built that had a polished engine and drivetrain. Must have went through three tubs of it in the 6yrs I owned that bike. Works best with those yellow flannel type rags.

 

[Hipster]

The binder in most stick compounds is paraffin wax which can be liquified with naptha or mineral spirits. When I'm polishing brass clock parts I use mineral spirits to remove the wax residue before lacquering.

3M makes an aluminum polish they label as aluminum polish and restorer, I buy it from NAPA. It is a soupy paste that smells like linseed oil. I used lots of it on a chopper I built that had a polished engine and drivetrain. Must have went through three tubs of it in the 6yrs I owned that bike. Works best with those yellow flannel type rags.

I've tried a bunch, as far as a product for final polish usually Mothers billet polish, it's a little thinner than regular mag polish, what I start with depends on how bad it is, sometimes it's wet/dry sandpaper or the likes of 3m superduty cutting compund. Microfiber not the thing to use, usually use cut up cotton t-shirt with the hems and seems cut out. I'm sure flannel works well. Plenty of decent producrs out there but many are more geared for final polish.

 

[Scooterwrench]

I've tried a bunch, as far as a product for final polish usually Mothers billet polish, it's a little thinner than regular mag polish, what I start with depends on how bad it is, sometimes it's wet/dry sandpaper or the likes of 3m superduty cutting compund. Microfiber not the thing to use, usually use cut up cotton t-shirt with the hems and seems cut out. I'm sure flannel works well. Plenty of decent producrs out there but many are more geared for final polish.

Those "microfiber" rags that look like terrycloth will actually scratch a polished surface. Another tip is dry buffing with no compound as the very final pass. All compounds are abrasives and the dry buff takes out the swirls. Has to be done at very low speed with almost no pressure or by hand.

 

[Hipster]

Those "microfiber" rags that look like terrycloth will actually scratch a polished surface. Another tip is dry buffing with no compound as the very final pass. All compounds are abrasives and the dry buff takes out the swirls. Has to be done at very low speed with almost no pressure or by hand.

Yep, microfiber does more hard than good,swirl up paintwork also. Don't polish fresh paint with it,it will end up a mess.

 

[Hipster]

Those "microfiber" rags that look like terrycloth will actually scratch a polished surface. Another tip is dry buffing with no compound as the very final pass. All compounds are abrasives and the dry buff takes out the swirls. Has to be done at very low speed with almost no pressure or by hand.

NORMALLY WHEN i SAY THIS PEOPLE THINK i'VE LOST MY MIND, most times it's the paint correction guys trying to sell $400 detail jobs that get offended.

 

[Sean Buick 76]

This is actually for my father and his GMT-900... 08, I think?

He's in his 70's and doesn't drive it much since he's retired. The tires leak air, and he's getting tired of having to air them up when he wants to use it. He took it to Discount Tire, and they went straight for an $1100 aftermarket rim sale, re-using his tires, but further said his front tires really needed to be replaced due to age (They're probably older but not super old).

I think they're trying to take advantage of him. They only saw corrosion from the outside, they didn't break a bead. With steel, the edges can be ground (wire wheeled?), and a black goop can be applied to seal them up. Does this not work with aluminum? My dad said that he did some checking with soapy water, at home, and did see bubbles, some of which were from the valve stem area. Do rims corrode around the valves, too, or is that more likely the stem itself?

Use “slime” sealant or another similar product