After reading several websites on polishing wheels I decided to go ahead and give it a try.
Begin with the right tools, Jasco gel stripper, disposable brush, acid gloves arm length, steel wool or other scouring device, a soft brass bristle brush is good. Keep some bakeing soda around incase you get the stripper on your skin or somewhere else you dont want it. Wear eye protection, full length sleeves and pants, wear a shop apron if you have one. If you have a barrel or somthing to hold up the wheel so that the paint can be collected use that. I had to scrape it off the cement then washed off what was left on the wheels with a hose.
[image: IPB Image] I did both wheels at once, remove the brake disks
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Apply the stripper the can is enough for both wheels make sure to get all the knooks and crannies.
Only takes 15 min for the paint to blister off, the stripper will eat a foam applicator (trust me heh) use a metal or wood brush with nylon bristles, then discard when your done.
Wash off exess with a hose use a nozzle for hi pressure washing, carefull dont get any of it on you, and wash it all away, keep the kids away and animals this is not for them! clean up any paint residue and dispose of properly. The stripper is water soluible but is dangerous. wear eye protection full length sleves and long gloves.
[image: IPB Image] You will have to repete the process untill you get all the paint off, I would do one wheel then wash it then do the other while that one dried, this is where I used the fine steel wool too, dipped it in stripper and had at it! I then applied Mothers Mag Polish and rubbed away till it shined.
What do you think?
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I am going to have to paint or grind down the front spokes and polish them since they have this rough finish to them. beer.gif
They get dirty of course, but the upkeep is about as much as they were before, getting the chain wax off, tar from the road, They dont seem to tarnish its aluminum. Just about the same as the oem paint wheels. :cool:
OKay, I think I'm straying away from the idea of chroming my wheels, as everyone says the stock wheels are very shiny under the paint (right?). I was wondering if it's possible to do the wheel polishing by only removing the rear wheel? You mentioned that the front spokes are not polished and you'd have to repaint them: would it be possible to tape around them and do the stripping/polishing with the front wheel on (ie would the stripper not seep under the tape?)
Also, how long would you say this process takes? Give it an entire day? An evening? Weekend?
I would not recommend stripping the front wheel while it is on the bike! �Esp. if your using a stripper and not doing it using elbow grease, too many things you can get stripper onto that would not be good! �Brake lines, caliper seals, ABS, the tire itself, also there is not enough room to do a good job if you leave the wheel on the bike. �
If you just to strip the rims and leave the spokes black just tape it off with a good body tape, then paint on the stripper with a good brush that you can control, if your gonna do it the old fashioned way using sandpaper then you will need to take off the wheel in order to get working room.
Took me 5 hours to do the entire bike including cleanup and reassembly. �If I were you I would wait untill I need a new set of tires then just pop on new tires after incase you accidently put stripper on the tire.
Brake dust likes to lodge into the rough surfaces of the spoke sides and center sections, its a pain to clean.
Thanks for the info. A couple more questions: How 'runny' is the stripper? Will it pretty much stay where I brush it onto (ie, it won't run over the tape and onto the tires, eating the tires away?)?
I guess my concern is that I have no idea how to reassemble the front brake stuff if I take off the front wheel... Will I have to bleed the brakes and go through that whole mess? That's why I am wondering if it can be done while it's on the bike...just do a section at a time (the front part, away from the brakes)?
Thanks again....always great to learn stuff before I f*ck anything up,
Taking off the front wheel is outlined very well in your owners manual! It is just a matter of jacking it up from under the headers, getting off the axle bolt, taking off the 4 caliper bolts, taking off the 4 axle pinch bolts then sliding out the axle. It goes on the opposite way. somtimes the calipers bolts might be on really tight carfull no to strip them. I did a pictorial how to here
Remove the wheels
Jasco stripper is very thick and can be put on very precisely, however its caustic and hazardous.
I am almost done stripping my rear wheel. I am stripping all the paint off the wheel. Has anyone else done the entire wheel? I am having some difficulty getting the paint removed from behind the spokes. I've caked on the stripper three times and let it sit for quite a while. Some paint will come off, but not like it did on the rest of the wheel. Should I just keep repeating this process and let the stripper do the work? I think my stripper took the day off... :doh:
You can visit the gallery and see how I did mine, there are sections on the spokes that are just cast and not polished, After a year of having them polished there was some sections that had been stained by road salt or acid rain, anyway there were places that had become stained and would not come off without scrubbing hard with steel wool.
On my spokes I put a wire cup on my portable grinder and cleaned them up with a power scrubbing, they look much better now. Some of the brake dust and the paint would not come off in the corners, I used a handheld brass wire brush when I first stripped that off. The brass wire cup attachement to my grinder really make it look shiny on the spokes. I wore a leather apron gloves and safety glasses when I cleaned them up.
The stripped wheels look great! Have you thought about polishing the main spars on the frame? I removed the manufacturers data decal (the VIN is also on the neck) and polished both sides, it looks great!
Always follow the directions on your can of paint remover.. Some people think if it recommends 15 minutes for the paint to bubble, "then hey, 30 minutes will really bubble and lift the paint off"!!!
This is false, the longer you leave it the hotter the chemical reaction gets on the aluminum, thus actually cooking the paint on!
As the remover dries, it chemically bonds to the wheel. The heat from the chemical reaction causes it to bake, making it harder in spots to remove the paint..
Great article HispanicSlammer, I referred to it acouple times while stripping my wheels.. :beer:
Using 1500 grit water proof sandpaper and water sanding the polished aluminum before you polish also helps add a brilliant shine..
gsacco, Mar. 27It's easy to tape off both wheels. It took me a Saturday and here is the finished product.
I just did this to the front today. Careful masking will give really sharp, professional-looking results. I used the blue 3M Safe-remove masking tape. Ran out of time before I could do the back. Will post pics when done.
My one piece of advice: give the stripper *plenty* of time to work. I started scraping after about 15 minutes on one side, and it was a chore. After waiting 30 minutes to do the other side, it was much easier to get the paint off.
The stripper workes better if its warm where your doing the work. Cold weather really makes it tough, with that in mind keep your work place ventilated. If you can do it on a tarp and dispose of the stipper properly, that would be best. That is some nasty stuff you dont want it in the water table.
Best practice it to brush on the stripper and try not to rebrush after it is on the wheel. Rebrushing will remove the top layer and allow the active stripper ingrediants to evaporate.
Thanks for the info guys. I took the plunge and stripped the paint off my wheels last weekend. I masked off the spokes on the front, and the insides of the spokes on the rear. What do you reckon? AB's Wheels Cheers AB
I got my rear wheel acid dipped. Takes the paint right off, but leaves the bright silver anodized coating underneath on. Cost $25 - no mess, no fumes, no scraping. Then I just brightened everything up with Blue Magic metal polish which cost another whole $8 and about 90 min.
SAFE-T, June 19 2004I got my rear wheel acid dipped. Takes the paint right off, but leaves the bright silver anodized coating underneath on. Cost $25 - no mess, no fumes, no scraping. Then I just brightened everything up with Blue Magic metal polish which cost another whole $8 and about 90 min.
Where did you take the wheels to have them acid dipped? I live in sort of a small town so I don't know if I would be able to get that done here, but that does sound like a good alternative to playing with the nasty chemicals and cheap too. :beer:
RiverRat, June 20 2004Where did you take the wheels to have them acid dipped? �
You have to find a place that does chemical metal cleaning. Call the local body shop and ask them if they know anyone that does it - shops that work on antique cars/hot rods will be your best bet for leads. The metal cleaning shop I used actually does whole cars...
This is my first project this winter when the snow starts to fly. In looking at the rear wheel one side (exhaust side) is finished smooth and the other side is rough cast. AB-Oz's wheels look great, that is the look which I am going to attempt to duplicate, I like the contrast of the polished and the black, has anybody tried to polish the wheels with out using the paint stripper? I have seen where you use a polishing wheel with a high grit polishing compound to remove the paint. I would like to polish only the smooth areas of the wheels and leave the black paint on the rough cast areas, rather than removing all of the paint then repainting the ares that I want black. I am concerned about the paint stripper seeping under masking tape and damaging the factory applied paint.
HispanicSlammer, Jul 24 2002, 04:06 PMThey get dirty of course, but the upkeep is about as much as they were before, getting the chain wax off, tar from the road, �They dont seem to tarnish its aluminum. �Just about the same as the oem paint wheels. :cool:
I don't agree, although it may depend on the original colour/type of finish. I had white painted wheels on my 1990 VFR750, and because they were quite chipped and scratched, decided to strip them. It took me about 4 hours to strip, clean and polish (with Autosol) both wheels. I found that they actually took LESS work once stripped, as the road spooge and brake dust didn't tend to stick as much to the polished metal as it did to the paint, probably due to some electrostatic thing with the paint. Instead of needing some elbow grease and heavy-duty cleaner, most of the grime came off very readily with the hose. Also, any grime that was presetn didn't stand out as much.
The silver painted wheels on my current bike seem to be somewhere in between the polished 750's wheels and the white paint, and the bikes I've had with black-painted wheels it was easy to ignore the grime as it didn't show up as badly.
ej90vfr, Mar 27 2003, 01:50 PMare the 90-93 wheels polished under the paint.I noticed that the older wheels are smoother than the new ones do you know if they have to be polished?
The spokes on the 90-93 wheels are roughcast, whereas on the VFR800 they're smooth. Rims are polished on both bikes.
