Re: Refinishing Throwing Star wheels (archive)

I tried to polish the rim myself but found it unbelievably difficult. They are 1991 vintage. The wheels were originally painted completely with silver, then the spokes,the surface between the spokes and the "verticle" surfaces were painted black. The paint appears to be done via a powder coating process.

I was using an industrial media blaster and the paint was almost impossible to remove.

I then polished the verticle surface and lip with a Foredom tool.

After one wheel, I gave up and called a wheel repair shop.

I'm glad I did. They charged me just $50.00 each to mirror polish the wheels. They also found three of them were out of round. FYI - it was $80.00 ea. to true them.

The wheel shop insisted that any clear coat would yellow so mine have no coating. I've tried stock pads (dust horribly) and Hawk pads (still much dust). Every few weeks I take the wheels off of the car, remove the covers and go over the polished surfaces with X-Treem aluminum polish and then several coats of wax.

Sadly, the dust has still pitted the aluminum. It's so bad that I plan to have the polished surfaces touched up as soon as I get my new track tires mounted on my spare Borbet wheels and can use them on the street.

I also have many aftermarket wheels that are several years old and have not yellowed so you decide about the clearcoat.

To sum it up, I love the look of the polished rims and get compliments on them everywhere I go. But they are a nightmare to keep shining.

Hope this helps.

Douglas

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