need help with these wheels

512detail

512detail

New member
my friend recently bought a 2012 toyota tundra and it came with 20 inch aftermarket wheels. he recently got back from hunting out of state and he said there was lots of snow where he was at.
we cleaned up his truck today but there is still something on the wheels, i dont know if its pitting (never seen it first hand before) or what

i cleaned the wheels with plenty of sonax full effect and a daytona speedmaster brush but these goldish spots still remain

dirty


clean-er


up close




he called me earlier and said put some windex on it and rubbed it with a towel and some of it was coming off. i haven't seen it since he did this but im going to look at it in the morning before work. i told him to hold off on the windex and i would post up on here and see if we can figure out a better way

it looks like rust but could that even happen in a week from being in the snow? he said these wheels were not like this when he purchased the truck

i've never seen this before and i didn't want to get too aggressive with it before asking

think this will come off with 0000 steel wool?

thanks in advance
 
Looks like rust to me but I doubt it's actually the wheel. It's probably brake dust rusting. Does he have access to any clay or metal polish?
 
I would first test to see if these wheels are clear coated. My thought is they are. I would then try any polish that is safe for clear coated wheels or even m205 and see what that does. This may be clear coat failure on the wheel that has now came through worse because it was in the snow.
 
I would agree that it also looks like clear coat failure to me. I also would try a polish on it also and see if that takes care of it.
 
bringing clay, 105,205 chrome polish and optiseal (in case any of the before items work)
oh and my da drill adapter and a buff ball
gonna see what those do and post up after 10 when im at the shop
 
had enough time to work on one wheel today before work.
clay, mothers chrome polish via ccs orange hand pad, and some elbow grease

went from this


to this


this


to this


drastic improvement but still not where it should be






dirty claybar


he said he would pick up a mini powerball (the larger one i had did not fit in the deep dish) and give it to me, so hopefully that will work a little better than via hand

after claying the wheel twice it smoothed most of the wheel out but i think whatever that is on there has eaten into the surface a little

thinking about hitting it with mild then strong apc and a toothbrush tomorrow and seeing how that works. he wanted to use simple green, but i said NO.
 
SG is not good for uncoated aluminum. It's okay for chrome as far as I remember but I don't think it will help in this situation either.
 
512detail said:
i have some 1:5 already diluted and a little 1:10 as well. just always thought that was bad for chrome

should i dilute it more?
Click to expand...

Chrome is TOUGH. Aluminum not so much. Just a trick, I've always used cleaners on the strong side but I never let stuff sit. Wipe it down an get it off. I'm sure 1/10 is fine, if it's still tough jump to 1/5.
 
im pretty sure its chrome..if it was aluminum when i used the chrome polish the applicator would have turned dark, right?
or is that just for bare aluminum?
 
Iron Xor Wolf's Deironizer (my preference and cheaper.) would have made quick work of those. Pick up some it makes doing really bad rims just as easy as doing nice ones which always sucks in general
 
0inDetail0 said:
Iron Xor Wolf's Deironizer (my preference and cheaper.) would have made quick work of those. Pick up some it makes doing really bad rims just as easy as doing nice ones which always sucks in general
Click to expand...

i have a bottle of iron x. i will try that tomorrow

its almost gone but i think i might have enough to do all four
 
Evan.J said:
I would first test to see if these wheels are clear coated. My thought is they are. I would then try any polish that is safe for clear coated wheels or even m205 and see what that does. This may be clear coat failure on the wheel that has now came through worse because it was in the snow.
Click to expand...

If the rag turns black then they are not clear coated, and would need heavy machine polishing to get that out...What it looks to me is pitting of the clear coat, from neglect and maybe the salts used while in the snow. That again would require machine polishing
 
final process was rinse, apc 1:5 on inside of wheels and speedmaster jr, rinse, iron x dwell and wipedown, then rinse
dried with leaf blower and then clayed the wheel and rinsed and dried again with leaf blower
0000 steel wool (first time using it and this stuff is awesome)
then followed up with mothers chrome polish via mothers mini ball and drill
put about six squirts of opti-seal on each wheel for good measure
proud of the results and thankful to finally have his wheels in better condition

before




after



those little dots are holes in the plating and they were not coming off but the oxidation or whatever that was on top came right off after clay and 0000steel wool

apc did not do anything, neither did the iron x but i guess it did help a little because all wheels turned colors..
it was the 0000 steel wool that did all the hard work




oh that scratch right there by the lip...when he got the truck he changed the tires and they messed up when installing/balancing them and caused at least two scratches like that on each lip-horrible



optibond on the tires (put on the day before this pic) if anyone was wondering-rinsing the wheel i got the tires wet and it didn't phase the optibond, much appreciated

tried to tell him he needed to get me to coat the wheels with the black label coating but for some reason he was not on board. hopefully the optiseal hold up well enough but who knows

i was actually doing all this to just help my friend out and he ended up giving me some cash so thats even better-and i booked two other jobs while working on these wheels this morning

gotta love some good karma

thanks for all the suggestions
 
Wow! Way good on the turnaround. I've been using the quad ought since the 70's. I too am a fan. It works great on rusted chrome. Back in the day we used it with a little bit of Sprite (soft drink). It removes surface rust in a blink. There are obviously products designed to work much more efficiently than what we did back in the day but some of this old school stuff really did work.
 
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