Aluminum Wheel Ding Removal

[LarryB]

Anyone have any luck burnishing out dings and scratches in your wheels?
I also have some sort of deposits of crud on the inside of the holes in the wheels. What will cut that?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

We are actually very lucky to have part of our coaches made from materials that we can restore with a little elbow grease and a few tools and sheets of sandpaper.

Our aluminum wheels can easily have scratches and corrosion removed. Depending on the depth of the problem, start with the least coarse sandpaper that will sand out the scratch or corrosion with a reasonable effort. The more coarse the sandpaper is, the more time will be required to remove the scratches from sanding and the more steps you will have to go through to blend the repair.

If the wheel is dented or misshapen I would not attempt to mess with it, but would send it to a company that specializes in the repair of wheels that have been damaged. But for the rash we get over time such as from rubbing a curb I would not hesitate to restore the finish. When the scratch has been sanded out, and the depth of the sanding has been feathered out, I would use the next finest grade sandpaper to start working out the sanding scratches, and with each succeeding change to a higher grit I would extend the area sanded past the previous one.

When I have reached sanding with 1500 grit the wheel is ready for polishing. For polishing you need a wide buff. I have a 1" wide unsewn cotton buff, 8" diameter that I am running in a 9" grinder. It has the power to get the job done. I use white compound or rouge in stick form and it may take one or two or even three times to get the high polish we originally had it is worth the effort.

I have just recently started using Flitz polishing compound with the Flitz buffer after polishing using compound and that puts a high gloss on the aluminum and it blends the slight polishing marks from the buffing. The same technique works on stainless, but on the light gauge stainless on our buses, except for the bumpers great care must be taken to minimize the heat which can buckle the sheet metal.

[LarryB]

Thanks Jon, I had thought of a procedure much as you describe but was fearful of creating a bigger problem. Maybe I'll practice on the 'crud' in the holes and work that out first.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Go find a piece of aluminum somewhere and scratch it. Then sand out the scratch and polish it.

The crud in the holes in the wheels could probably be dealt with by using ScotchBrite pads.