S1 wheel polishing recommendations
Discussion
I'm not much of a polisher, but I'd have thought that if you wash and dry a test area and then try metal polish, then it will either start to improve (in which case you keep going) or you'll find you're just grinding away at the lacquer in which case you will need to get them stripped back and repolished (or DIY).
If it was me, I'd use a test area on the inside of the wheel so it is less obvious if you find lacquer.
If it was me, I'd use a test area on the inside of the wheel so it is less obvious if you find lacquer.
GreenV8S said:
If it was me, I'd use a test area on the inside of the wheel so it is less obvious if you find lacquer.
The inside of those wheels is a dark grey "Anthracite" finish.Only the outside face is diamond cut
I'm not a polisher, so I had my S1 OZ Slots stripped and refurbished by The Wheel Specialist in Manchester
Black powder coated all over, then "Smoked Chrome" on the outer face:
I was very pleased with the results and they still look as good after 5 years.
I made the centres out of black sticky-backed vinyl.
Hi Joe,
I don't have any experience with this wheels, but with a lot of alloy wheels with "polished rim". In fact the wheels are painted in black, machined after, and lacquered at the end. The oxide spots you see are under the lacquer coating.
If you want to keep the original design, the only way is to find a machiner with a CNC lathe, to remove a 1/10 mm skin. After you have to varnish the wheels immediately with the correct product. That will be expensive because the machiner will have to "learn" the wheel profile.
The easiest solution is to ask a specialist to blast and powder-coat the wheel in metallic grey. You can paint the black with a brush after. But powder coating can't be absolutely shiny. It's always a little satiny. The main benefit of powder-coating is that this is very strong and brake dust proof.
I don't have any experience with this wheels, but with a lot of alloy wheels with "polished rim". In fact the wheels are painted in black, machined after, and lacquered at the end. The oxide spots you see are under the lacquer coating.
If you want to keep the original design, the only way is to find a machiner with a CNC lathe, to remove a 1/10 mm skin. After you have to varnish the wheels immediately with the correct product. That will be expensive because the machiner will have to "learn" the wheel profile.
The easiest solution is to ask a specialist to blast and powder-coat the wheel in metallic grey. You can paint the black with a brush after. But powder coating can't be absolutely shiny. It's always a little satiny. The main benefit of powder-coating is that this is very strong and brake dust proof.
Looking at the photos, I think that these wheels are not lacquered. I had a lot of experience with Wolfrace slot alloys and they used to look good after polishing. Try a little area by hand, as suggested, but buy a polishing kit to use in an electric drill. They are not expensive. You will get far superior results that way. If they are lacquered then they do need to be stripped back.
Yep, agree with Tony.
Have a set of those in the loft, no laquer and they're not "diamond cut" just a smooth polished surface. Shed loads of "how to polish wheels" tutorials on YouTube.
This stuff is supposed to be the bees knees.... Mothers Polish
Edited by phillpot on Friday 14th December 09:37
Try something like this:
https://www.metalpolishingsupplies.co.uk/pro-max-a...
Mothers polish is good and the Meguiars one, which gives some protection as well.
https://www.metalpolishingsupplies.co.uk/pro-max-a...
Mothers polish is good and the Meguiars one, which gives some protection as well.
Time and elbow grease can save a lot of money. I removed the lacquer from the machined faces with Nitromors (scraped off with an old credit card), rubbed down with 800, 1200 and 2500 wet & dry and lots of water, and then polished using an angle grinder metal polishing kit from ebay using brown compound. (As my 115mm angle grinder doesn’t have speed control I used a kit with discs ok for 12500 rpm but you have to be gentle to avoid burning the compound onto the aluminium).
They shined up really well, though it took a full evening for each wheel.
As my car only comes out of the garage when the sun shines (knowing its history, I suspect it hasn’t seen rain since it left the factory) I haven’t re-lacquered the wheels, a wipe over with autosol in the spring, and a spray with WD40 before it is SORN for the winter, seems all they need.
They shined up really well, though it took a full evening for each wheel.
As my car only comes out of the garage when the sun shines (knowing its history, I suspect it hasn’t seen rain since it left the factory) I haven’t re-lacquered the wheels, a wipe over with autosol in the spring, and a spray with WD40 before it is SORN for the winter, seems all they need.
So I had mine powder coated 'bright aluminium' *. 5 years later, with the car outside in all weathers, I still just wash them. 
I stripped mine manually over a year ago, as described above (Nitromors / progressively finer grades of wet-and-dry / French polisher's ultrafine wire wool, Mother's alloy polish). Very carefully avoiding damage to the original black stoved areas. And remember to remove your centre caps before starting, 'cos when you have spoiled them you won't find replacements of the right size ! Added new nuts and a set of BlueResponses to finish the job.
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