How to get a good shine on stag alloys

[badly]

Hi

I have some original alloy wheels that were refurbished and are the natural finish (not laquered) and the previous owner had the car for a while and not used on the road and look good. You see some photos of peoples wheels and the unpainted parts seem to almost have a mirror like finish. I really want mine to look like this but don't want to do anything to ruin them. If there is a secret in achieving this, can you share this with me or is it just a lot of elbow grease with metal polish.

Dave

[m9fdb]

imported post

Use very fine wet and dry paper 1500 and 2000 grit then autosol them and to get them really shiny wax them - they are a labour of love and hard work to keep mint but really set the Stag off when they are spotless imo

[singapore stag]

imported post

m9fdb wrote:

Use very fine wet and dry paper 1500 and 2000 grit then autosol them and to get them really shiny wax them - they are a labour of love and hard work to keep mint but really set the Stag off when they are spotless imo

Couple of my wheels have kind of whitish marks on them, looks like water runs.

someone told me salt from the road does that. How can I remove these. A stupid question now,.. how do you tell the difference between lacquered and un lacquered wheels.

[m9fdb]

imported post

Iwould say yours are lacquered if they have gone milky - bare alloy dosent really go milky.

I have two sets of stag wheels for my car and will be having one set refurbed and not laquered for summer use and the others for the winter (even though they are still clean)

[badly]

imported post

Hi

I dont think they are laquered. They are shiny but not as good as some I have seen.

[Moraystag]

imported post

Gent's recently took all my wheels off and got to work on them. Nitromorsed off all the old paint, masked them off. This was a bitch, but with a craft knife to trim up the masking tape I eventually got a pretty good paint result.

Ibought from flea bay the felt polishing bobs and the polishing compound. Takes a while and better to takethe wheelsoff as it's a lot easier to get into them when using the drill and felt bob.

Finished off with the normal metal polish and they came up really good. Takes a while but you can get rid of salt marks on the bare aluminium and get them to quite a level of BLING. All depends on how far you want to go. It took on average including masking&painting 6 hrs per wheel ( My wheels were not lacquered )


Forgot to add that after nitromorse I used my petrol power washer with a paint stripping nozzle to remove all the stubborn paint 2200PSI

[Ian B]

imported post

my wheels have a very high shine to them, i do polish them every once in a while but the main reason they stay looking so good is because after every run and i mean every run, i clean them off with a damp sponge then dry them with a cloth, i have been known to be sponging the wheels down at 11.30 at night which is very sad but it does keep them looking good; especially as they are now sporting a nice new set of 205 tyres. imho elbow grease will beat every polish available

[grahamb]

imported post

Ian B wrote:

my wheels have a very high shine to them, i do polish them every once in a while but the main reason they stay looking so good is because after every run and i mean every run, i clean them off with a damp sponge then dry them with a cloth, i have been known to be sponging the wheels down at 11.30 at night which is very sad but it does keep them looking good; especially as they are now sporting a nice new set of 205 tyres. imho elbow grease will beat every polish available

Ian, it had to happen at some point......

I completely agree with you - you are very sad

[Westfaling]

imported post

Ian
I'm interested to know the specs on the 205s on your car. Did they fit on the std alloys with no interferences?
Nick

[Jeff]

imported post

Hello Dave,.

I'd start with 800 wet/dry otherwise you'll be there all day just getting the lacquer off, then progressively work to finer 1000 or even 1500 (wet).

Then buff up with a chrome cleaner using drill attachment, see photo. When you are happy with the finish and you will be, then apply wax to protect, but re apply regularly to save further work.

Jeff.

[Jeff]

imported post

This is a SD1 rocker cover I did 3 years ago and not touched it since, never got round to finishing or waxing.

Used an orbital sander then the polishing buffer as in previous picture.

Jeff.

[Ian B]

imported post

Westfaling wrote:

Ian
I'm interested to know the specs on the 205s on your car. Did they fit on the std alloys with no interferences?
Nick

205/70/14 Nangking's £48.00 a corner- fit straight on to original alloys, and look so much meatier than the old 175's that came off.

[Moraystag]

imported post

Jeff your rocker cover, is that just block standard carbon steel. If it is I may do this myself. Mine are silver probably original. Would Nitromorse take the old paint of or would I have to use sander??

[richardthestag]

imported post

Moraystag wrote:

Jeff your rocker cover, is that just block standard carbon steel. If it is I may do this myself. Mine are silver probably original. Would Nitromorse take the old paint of or would I have to use sander??

You will need to remove everything below the rocker cover from your stag engine bay and install a TV8 :P



Dives for cover



kidding

[Moraystag]

imported post

Ummmmm, never saw that one coming