Fuchs Finish Question

[Mikey37027]

OK stripped my first wheel and this is what I found, any thoughts on how to proceed? Thanks for any help.

[Geronimo '74]

What did you use to strip it???
Is that paint or some kind of coating?
You'll probably need to remove that, so strip more.
What are your plans with the wheels? Paint, polish??

[89911]

Left over anodizing. Just remove it to the bare aluminum if you plan on polishing them. If painting, just roughen it up.

[peon77]

I want to strip my wheels too, but I wont if they are like that. What is the date on your wheel? Mine are 10/76. I have heard that the factory wasn't concerned with the anodized finish since the centers were getting painted.

[Geronimo '74]

there's really no reason not to strip them if you want to.
The OP's wheels will come out as new after he removes the anodizing.
Once the anodizing is off, you can do whatever you want.


(tell your wife Pelican sure beats a stripclub...., she won't disagree...)

[89911]

Originally Posted by peon77

I want to strip my wheels too, but I wont if they are like that. What is the date on your wheel? Mine are 10/76. I have heard that the factory wasn't concerned with the anodized finish since the centers were getting painted.

I've refinished enough to see that the whole wheel is anodized and then the centers are painted. Mine looked like those before I striped, sanded and polished to a mirror finish.

[Fastracer73]

I have blastered Fuchs with glass beads. Turns out smooth and good to work with afterwards.

Some inspiration:
FUCHS 7" & 8" 16" makeover Part One

I'm now working on a 8"/16" -and 9"/16" - that will be "part two"

[ddubois]

I recently refinished mine using this process.
1.) Strip anodizing with oven cleaner. As others have mentioned that is anodizing you still need to remove.
2.) Wet sand working up to 1000 grit.
3.) Polish using aluminum wheel polish and the cone shaped foam polisher from Mother's in your drill. This thing is a huge time/finger saver.
4.) Clean and paint as desired.
5.) Apply carnuba wax on the polished surfaces.

Figure around 4 hours per wheel.

[kodioneill]

Send them to Al Reed, to me it's not worth the time or effort , you can't possibly do as good a job for the price. Do a search hundreds of posts on this subject.

[Mikey37027]

How long does it take the oven cleaner to work? Is it a multi step process?

To give you guys some background I just bought the car about a month ago. All wheels were painted black:



Stripped the spare and it looked like this:




Stripped the first wheel that was on the car and you see what I ended-up with. Since it looks like the anodized is off of most of the wheel I would like to take it the rest of the way and polish.

As a back-up, anyone have a # for Al or any other polisher they recommend?

[boxster03]

I would keep that nice original spare with original 185/70 Dunlop as is.

[Mikey37027]

I agree, was very pleased witht he way the spare turned-out.

[JerryL]

Originally Posted by kodioneill

Send them to Al Reed, to me it's not worth the time or effort , you can't possibly do as good a job for the price. Do a search hundreds of posts on this subject.

+ 1 on that for sure!!!

Regards

[Milo2361]

yes left over anodization. I just refinished mine (new thread coming soon with pics ) and it looked similar(smoother, but same coloring) to yours. I used a combination of bob tiltion's hand method(scotch brite) and someone elses(cant remember it but its in one of the fuchs threads) he used grinding wheels. mine are kind of a crude finish, but you can only see the imperfections if you're less than a foot away. details to come in a new thread.

[Mikey37027]

OK, this is with about 4 coats of oven cleaner and an hour plus of wet sanding w/ 1000 grit paper. Thoughts? I think I am almost there. Plan to polish these up.

[Mikey37027]

Finished w/ the stip, sand and polish. Here are the results. Trying to decide if I should trim-out in black. Thoughts?

[bluesky]

Great progress....I think trimming in black would finish them off nicely!

I have to do this to the rim for my spare....how much time does it take to oven-cleaner/sand/polish one rim?

[Mikey37027]

It took me between 4 and 5 hours per wheel (probably high b/c of the learning curve). I had to apply the oven cleaner 5 times, the center part of each wheel was pretty bad. I then wet-sanded w/ 220 - 660 - 1000 coat paper.