My ongoing restoration work on my 1996 J30 continues, and it's time to do some work on the rims. The surface of all four shows some fairly serious oxidation and scrapes. They were also miserably dirty, but I spent all afternoon and a whole bottle of Meguiar's wheel cleaner and the result is a vast improvement.

https://flic.kr/p/G2Uo13


It's been a while since I played with BB codes, but hopefully you will see an image of one of my wheels above. The problem areas are around the hubs and some along the perimeter. From the research I've done so far it sounds like the way to proceed is to sand down the bad parts (220 grit sandpaper has been suggested) WITHOUT using power tools to avoid damaging the material. Then use finer grain sandpaper to smooth out the scrapes. Then polish and clearcoat.

This all sounds doable to me, since it mostly involves elbow grease and I have a great deal more of that available than money at the moment. Has anybody done a project like this? Any specific techniques or products that you would recommend or warn me against?

Finally, I have had a lot of trouble with stubborn gunk in the inside corners of the small slots in the wheels. I can shoot a closeup photo if that's not clear enough. The problem is that those little slots are damn narrow, and with the kind of curve at the back I just can't get a brush in there with enough power behind it to do the job. My inclination is to Dremel if I can figure out a head gentle enough and pointy enough to get the gunk without shredding the surface.

Anyway, as before I would be most grateful for any information or guidance. My mirror replacement went just fine thanks to the excellent folks here, and now I'm having to re-learn how to drive the Black Beauty without a big weird blindspot in one of the side mirrors! Thanks in advance.

-Mean Machine

Crap. The link to my image is okay, but I did one with the img tags and it still didn't show the image within the message. What gives? Oh, well. You can still click the link to see the pic, it's just clunkier that way. Grr.
-MM

This looks like what you need...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W9jn90VEAY

Thanks for the link. It's a very detailed and well-done walkthrough, but I'm not sure it's for the right kind of wheels. Doesn't the J30 have painted rims, at least on the upper surfaces? It looks to me like the insides of the spokes are coated alloy, but the "tops" are clearly some other texture.

For cleaning the corners, go to your local Sporting Goods shop and buy .22 caliber nylon bore cleaning brushes. Brass ones are ok for the forged wheels with gentle pressure, but nylon ones work on all ! You can even splurge for a "pistol" cleaning brush handle set if you want, it's a one piece shaft not the longer 3 piece rofle length.

The tops are machined with clear coat. No paint.

It might make a difference if you had a J30 with cast wheels or a J30T with forged wheels! Look on the rim, they are marked as to the type,