I have polished the lip on my wheels of my 99 bird. This took about 3 hours and a lot of rubbing. I am wanting to polish the whole wheel and am wondering if anyone has any suggestions. Will chemical paint strippers eat up the tires? Any help would be appreciated. :worship:

Well how I would do it is a little different then how others are doing it.

First I would take of the front and back rims from the bike. Remove both tires, brakes and bearings from the wheels.






Then I will load them into the car and take them to shop and have them done! :grin:

Ken

Second that. Take'm to a shop. It's well worth the dollars. Polishing is a real bear! ...and I know, check out my pics in the Member and Pics area.

Aircraft paint remover.

You can strip the whole wheel with stripper, but just remember once it's back on the bike, it's gunna be a real bitch to keep clean.
Just for the simple reason of getting your hands in between everything and polishing them on a routine schedule.

Unless of course you're like DBLXX, Dave and you don't ride much or in the rain.

They will look good, but a bitch to keep up with. The best thing to do is get them chromed.

Thanks for the info. I'm going to check on price diferences on chrome for the wheels and polishing. In the past, I have polished items on cars and clear coated them. It's not hard to keep a shine for a long time this way, I guess the clear coating seals off the aluminum and doesn't allow oxidation to occur.

I don't like the chrome look. I don't know why - I guess I think it's just too shiny. Anyway, like you, I decided to polish my wheels.

First off, let me tell you that it's not as much work as people make it out to be. Second, you never HAVE to use sandpaper if you don't want to.

Right now, I have my rear tire off the bike and I've been working at it for several weeks now. It's been several weeks only because I'm in no rush to finish and I've devoted only about 1 hour / week to them (school, work, etc.). Also, I've been experimenting with several methods to see what works the best. When I finish, I was planning on posting pics and procedures.

So far, I don't see why everyone won't polish their wheels - it hasn't been that painful. If you can hold off a little longer, I'll post everything I've learned about the process, plus I'll show you the end result.

Joe

Oh, and BigBoy is right. It won't be a walk in the park keeping them clean. That's why I plan on coating them with a sealant when I finish. If I ever have to re-polish, the sealant can be stripped of easily.

Joe

Thanks Joe. Like you, I am in no hurry. I used sandpaper, rubbing compound, and aluminum polish to polish the lips of my wheels. The sanding was the hardest part. I think I will use a paint stripper like aircraft paint remover and then polish the wheels. Love to see the pics and the steps you took to do the job. I'll post some pics of mine soon as I can get a digital camera.