polishing aluminum wheels can somebody help

[86camaroman]

i had a 87 mustang gt put tons of money in it including buying new cobra polished wheels well i sold it about 3 years ago the guy comes to me the other day and says you wanna buy that piece of crap back well when i went and looked at it i couldnt believe what i saw the car had been setting in a barn for almost the whole 3 years the guy had totally trashed the car i mean totally transmission is shot had new tires when i sold it and all 4 are slick as onions and now needs paint job and interior and a top and also i cant get the wheels to shine again can i sand them with a certain grit and then use a mothers powerball with polish to get the sand marks out any help is greatly appreciated i will post a couple pics as well and yes thats mold growing on the seats i will also post a before pic from when i had it and what the wheels used to look like last time i owned the car i put about 10k in it including crate motor gears exhaust shif kit wheels its hard to believe somebody would do this to a car now if i do everything myself it will take 3k just to get it nice again

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/mustang3.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys593.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys593.jpg



http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys591.jpg

[86camaroman]

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys589.jpg

[Iceman]

Here is how far I got on my aluminum. I stripped the clear off with wire wheel, then used a small IR polisher/sander and sanded with 1000 grit, then 1500. I then polished with Mothers polish. The look very good, but I wanted something more durable so I'm not always polishing them. Len sent me to ALSA http://www.alsacorp.com/products/clear4chrome/cl4ch_prodinfo.htm. They claim that clear will stick to any polished metal, though I haven't tried it yet.

[36fordguy]

You can take them to a chrome shop and have them buffed. But they don't look that bad. Try some blue magic - This stuff works goods better than Mothers. Your wheels come out looking perfect. Blue Magic is sold by Plastic Process Equipment Co 1-800-362-0706. The best stuff I've found to clean the upholstery is "Scrubbing Bubbles" . -36fordguy

[Henry]

You can take them to a chrome shop and have them buffed. But they don't look that bad. Try some blue magic - This stuff works goods better than Mothers. Your wheels come out looking perfect. Blue Magic is sold by Plastic Process Equipment Co 1-800-362-0706. The best stuff I've found to clean the upholstery is "Scrubbing Bubbles" . -36fordguy
Where did you hear that one? Henry

[36fordguy]

Give it a try Henry it works great. It will take old vinyl upholstery and make it look new. Spray it on wipe it off - 36fordguy

[86camaroman]

i took all the interior out shampooed all the carpet and the seats got that part done gonna do some interior painting though and both door handles are broke ordered new ones these wheels dont have any clear coat on them so i dont have to sand or strip any of that i have blue magic personally i like mothers better but i have blue magic eagle one mothers mag and aluminum mothers billet and mothers power metal polish and personally i think the billet works best i know when i bought the car back i thought they would polish up easily but they sure wont i was wonderin if i could sand with 1000grit wet then 1500wet then 2000wet and be able to get the sand marks out

[86camaroman]

hers some pics the seats were still wet when i took the pic

http://http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys594.jpg

http://http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys595.jpg

http://http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys598.jpg

[86camaroman]

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys595.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys594.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys598.jpg

[36fordguy]

The seats look good. Its a shame that happened to your car. I have some weld wheels that had some deep scratches in from a wreck that I sanded out and buffed up. After they polished you could see a slight ripple in the polished finished where the deep scratches were but they turned out great. After I had that amount of work into the repolished wheels I took them and had them clear powder coated. Haven't put it all together yet so I don't know how that will stand up. But the clear powder coat looks great (Now). 36fordguy

[86camaroman]

its hard for me to imagine buying a car like that and ruining it i hadnt seen the car since the day i sold it and every car show i went to i figured it would be there never in a million years would i have thought it was setting trashed in a barn another funny thing he told me that he could count on one hand how many times he had drove the car and that the day after i sold it to him the transmission went out but amazingly the car had over 20,000 more miles on it then it had when i sold it and he told me the tires were bald when he bought it from me but i bought the wheels and tires less then a month before he bought the car

[dave_demented]

that really sucks man, that would really piss me off it it were me..... but hey this gives you a chance to make it better than before....

[86camaroman]

yeah it does suck i didnt really have the money to buy another car especially one thats gonna need a ton of money put into it but i could not stand to see it rotting away like that hopefully i can fix it back up and at least get back what i got in it also i sanded a wheel down with 1500 then went to 2000 and used my mothers powerball on my drill and the wheel started to look new again until the drill battery went dead on my sad part is i dont know where the charger is have an electric one but dont know where the chuck is to it but tomorrow i will post a picture of the wheel when its done

[Henry]

Give it a try Henry it works great. It will take old vinyl upholstery and make it look new. Spray it on wipe it off - 36fordguy
never said where you heard about the bubbles............ Henry

[hobbytime]

Camaroman,

Polishing aluminum starting with sand paper will work and produce good results. But it’s a lot of manual labor. Here is what if did.

http://artshobbyprojects.com/huffpuffbuff.html

Art.

[86camaroman]

thats pretty much what i am doing i have one almost finished i will post pics of it later and maybe an interior pic to i have the seats back the front seats cleaned up nicely but i had some nice seat covers so i put them on as well the rear seat still has some stains on it

[86camaroman]

startin to get some shine back

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys602.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys603.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys604.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/86camaroman/toys605.jpg