Saturday, March 13, 2010

Makin' Them Shine!

This morning Elsie and I went to my parents house so they could see Elsie and I could work on shining the wheels on the Cougar.  The current set of wheels are 14" Centerlines from American Racing and while I would rather have something else on the car the funds are not available at this time to change wheels and tires.  I would rather spend my money on upgrading other parts of the car first and trying to make the current set of wheels look better first. Another post will be dedicated to researching which wheels will fit and be going on the car in the future.

To get started on this project I got out the air wrench and a 13/16 socket and jacked up the car. I removed a wheel from the car and placed it on a portable workbench. I used a three step process to clean these all-aluminum wheels.  First, I wiped the metal cleaning polish on the wheels with a microfiber rag to start to loosen the dirt and grime.  Second, I used a polishing ball in a portable drill to clean the majority of dirt and corrosion off the wheels.  I moved around workbench and the wheel with the portable drill in a clockwise direction to keep the polishing ball from jumping off the wheel.  Finally, I used a clean microfiber rag to wipe off the excess product and dirt and buff the wheel clean.

I cleaned the two wheels on the driver's side today and now I just need to clean the passenger side. I spent about 45 minutes to an hour cleaning each wheel twice as they are quite dirty.  In the future I will likely use a Mother's wheel product on the wheels, but first I wanted to see the difference between the other two wheels with the cleaning product alone.

I forgot to take pictures of the results today, but I will be posting them here soon.

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