Keeping billet wheels nice and shiny is a crummy job but well worth the effort. How many hours have you spent sitting on the ground rubbing away trying to bring back that shine? A lot I'm sure, but how many of you take the time to clean the backside of the rim? Yeah, if you have big wheels and small brakes I'm sure you'll stuff a hand in and wipe it, but do you polish it? Any way the Colorado Customs on my S10 have been on daily driven trucks most of their life and the inner bands are smoked. I wanted to fix that issue, but I really didn't feel like paying a professional polisher to do it. I broke out some Scotch-Brite, 400-grit wet or dry paper, and an air grinder to tackle the gnarly stuff. To bring back the shine I used a Powerball from Mother's chucked into a drill motor.
The Source
Mothers Polish
(800) 221-8257
www.mothers.com
 2. Here are my wheels. As...  2. Here are my wheels. As you can see the inner area has seen better days. Besides the unsightly brake dust there are gouges in the aluminum and what looks to be road tar bonded to it. |  3. For the initial clean up...  3. For the initial clean up I used a red Scotch-Brite pad soaked in soapy water. I know this is going to leave scratches so I sanded in a straight line around the band instead of random circles. Looking back I should have used the grey Scotch-Brite pad which is a little less aggressive but I didn't have any at the time. |  4. This is what it looked...  4. This is what it looked like when I was done with the Scotch-Brite. It's got that cool brushed look that looks better than before, but not good enough. If you look close you can see the gouges and road tar spots that stayed behind. |
 5. Here are the offending...  5. Here are the offending road tar spots. I did try to scrape them off with a knife but I ended up scratching the rim worse. I think the paper worked the best. |  6. I used the 400 sandpaper...  6. I used the 400 sandpaper to sand down the tar until it was gone. It took a little bit to get them off. |  7. For the gouge I needed...  7. For the gouge I needed to use something more aggressive like an air grinder with a sandpaper disc and a Scotch-Brite disc. |
 8. Being very careful, I attacked...  8. Being very careful, I attacked the gouge with the sandpaper disc. It took it down very fast so I switched to the Scotch-Brite just to be safe. |  9. Here is the area after...  9. Here is the area after I was done. I won't be able to fill the deep area but at least it smooth and won't be as noticeable once its shiny. |  10. As a final step I worked...  10. As a final step I worked over the whole band one more time with the 400. |
 11. With the Powerball chuck...  11. With the Powerball chuck into a Makita drill motor set at about 1400rpm, I started the polishing process. You can apply the polish to the ball or on the wheels, I chose to load up the Powerball and then smear it around. I took a while for the shine to show back up, but the Powerball held up like a champ. I kept the ball pretty wet with polish so it slung stuff everywhere, but it was worth it. |  12. After a few minutes I...  12. After a few minutes I stopped to check progress. The rim was shiny but it still had some scratches. The scratches weren't bad enough to bug me so I finished up the rest of the rims and called it a day. |  13. What is a Powerball?...  13. What is a Powerball?
Mothers Powerball is a foam-polishing ball that attaches to any standard-size hand drill; Mothers recommend an 18-volt cordless or comparable. It is made from proprietary open-cell foam designed to be extremely durable yet gentle on the wheel. You can use it on metal, plastic lenses and on your paint to rub out minor scratches. One very nice feature to this tool is when you're finished using it, just give it a quick wash and it's ready to use again. |