A quick and easy solution for REALLY dirty chrome

[Ben Z.]

My dad was restoring a harley that had been in a fire. He thought the chrome rims were toast since they were all black and chrome polish was taking forever and not getting them perfect. As a last resort we tried some $0.97 oven cleaner from walmart. We let it sit for about 20-30 minutes then rinsed while using a mild scrubbing pad (not scotch brite, much softer). I`d say about 95% of the black and discoloration came off in about 30 seconds of rinsing. Chrome looked great.



Beware, do not get this stuff on bare aluminum! We accidentally got some on a piece he was polishing and it ate some pretty deep pits in it. The chrome wheel was not damaged in the least.



Hope somebody finds this useful.

[scottabir]

sounds acidic to me.

[Ben Z.]

Nope, water is way (many orders of magnitude) more acidic. Active ingredient is NaOH.

[Hemi57]

Well those Mythbuster guys reckon cola soda does a great job on chrome. I will be trying that on my project Ute (Pick-up) next weekend. :)

[imported_themightytimmah]

Good to know, nothing like a harsh cleaner on bad metal. You should have seen what Alumabrite did on my friend`s old motorcycle :). We conservatively estimated 3 hours in savings over Mother`s polish and a terry rag.