Restoring the “bling” to custom wheels

Sometimes you want beauty and you don’t have any extra money! That’s what this post is all about. Custom wheels are costly and not everybody has the money or the means to replace them at will. But there is an alternative! You can learn how to do this with just a couple of cheap and simple to use items and just a little time and some good old-fashioned “elbow grease” and commitment to quality!

Many years ago, I worked at a car dealership learning how to be a lot technician, and I was faced with also cleaning cars and some of them were in very poor shape and I had the opportunity to learn how to detail like the professionals. It took me several weeks to fine-tune my detailing skills to the point that the boss and other salesmen were selling the used cars much faster as I made them look much better inside and out. I still have a deep love for detailing and this post will show you how I haven’t lost my touch.

My love for shiny chrome on yesterdays and today’s cars is something I enjoy seeing on my vehicles. I would work my hardest to make it possible. My passion for cars and trucks is driven by the results I can achieve one step at a time.

For this project, you will need :

SOS pads or steel wool also works

bucket of water, and plenty of patience to get all of the rust off these hubcaps!

Now each hubcap shares a different degree of how much rust is on each one. To my surprise,  they are all mismatched brand hubcaps. I noticed this after cleaning the rust off. This project took me approx. 40 minutes to do all four of them. It made me very happy to see the results, cleaning these beauties.

Next, I took the results from the hubcaps to the wheels on my truck. The wheels on my truck are aluminum mag wheels and with as much damage that was on these wheels from all the 4-wheeling the last owner did with it, the wheels never got any attention. With the mag wheels, I had to see what would be the best product to clean them. So I tested a small spot with some steel wool to see what effect it had and it did well and that is a good sign!

 

 

I am using the same products I used to clean my chrome hubs for the wheels. I am so excited now because it was taking out a lot of the pits and grooves in the wheels from all the years of neglect. When I get these finished, they look brand new again! No one can believe it! But I have the before and after pictures! It took me about an hour for each wheel. By the way, I also took some of the lug-nuts off and cleaned them as well. But to me, it was a labor of love for my Burb!