Restore Your Car Wheels At Home

Hi Steemians,

Nice hot weather in my hometown of Perth, Western Australia today, and I thought I'd restore some car rims that were old and dirty. Over time, brake dust, oil dirt, road kill and the sun can make your once nice shiny wheels look old and take away from the entire look of car. I love my old ipod... hadn't fired her up for nearly ten years and thought I'd listen to some tunes while I was in the garage prepping this job.

I am a big fan of the German cars, just love how they are made, how they feel, how they make the driver feel! And these BMW wheels were just looking a bit worse for wear, the car is 12 years old now, so the clear coat of the wheels is starting to peel off, along with a really bad build up of grime etc. They don't look too bad in a photo, but to the naked eye are not nice at all.

The first step was to jack the car up and get the wheels off.

Then give the wheels a wash with a sponge and warm soapy water...

Then use 400 grit wet sand paper to rub the metal so its smooth and free from as many imperfections as possible. No need to go overboard here, about 10 mins per wheel will get them good enough... wheels get scratched the moment they hit the road.

Once you have rubbed them down, wash off again with a sponge and soapy water and leave to dry. If you have an air compressor you can assist the drying buy blowing air through the nut holes and around the rim to get rid of any excess water, but it is not essential. Just make sure the wheels are completely dry before going on to the next step.

Yeah it is labour intensive, but you are going to save yourself some good crypto by not having to pay a rim restorer etc to do it.

The next step is use a wax and grease remover (available at places like super cheap, bunnings, autobahn etc) and take a soft cloth and wipe down the wheels before painting.

Now, for the painting process I realise not everyone has a compressor and a spray gun/booth but you can get an equally good job using an acrylic spray can and an acrylic clear. What I did was use a silver spray can and then finish off with acrylic clear from my spray gun. Be generous with the clear because this is what protects the paint underneath and provides the shine you need to make the neighbours take notice.

Finished product here, but there is still the step of removing that overspray from the actually tyre tomorrow. The paint doesn't really like to stick to rubber, so let it dry, and in a day or even two (longer the better) the paint residue around the tyre will just fall right off with a normal garden hose, or a small household high pressure cleaner if you have:) The reason I won't wash the residue off now is because the acrylic paint really needs a few days to harden before washing/high pressure washing it. An interesting fact is that acrylic paint never fully hardens in its entire life!

Ciao for Now!