The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Rust on chrome wheels

I have a 55 1st with chrome wheels and hubcaps (Baby Moons, if you will) with some rust on them (caps especially). I was going to replace them when I could, but decided to try using a wire wheel with a low speed drill on a small area. It worked quite nicely (well better than expected) but very time consuming and without a small enough tool, will not be able to get in the little crevises. Does anyone else have a good idea for removing all the rust and making them shine again? Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Stewart

Use a fine grit Scotchbrite pad on a twist-lock rubber disc in a variable-speed drill motor. They're available on Ebay in either 2" or 3" versions. The 2" disc will get into the tight spots on your wheels pretty nicely. Once they're cleaned up, a heavy coat of Johnson 's paste wax and some buffing with a lambs' wool polisher in the same drill motor will help retard the rust for a while. The permanent fix is a sandblaster and powder coating,
Jerry

Thanks, Jerry. Glad to see youu made it back OK. Did you guys get the engine started? And I wiil start searching for the pads. Have a great one.

Stewart

Yes, we did the run-in of the cam on Friday morning, then did a final valve adjustment before I headed home. There's still a few details to finish before it goes back into the truck. There's plenty of those Scotchbrite discs and the "Roloc" drive arbors on Ebay.
Jerry

I always use soap soaked #0000 steel wool.

What bartamos suggests woks absolute miracles in my experience. I did that on an old rusty orange chrome grill on my '50 4 years ago and it still shines bright. Paste wax afterwards is key.

I was watching Find it, Fix it Flog it (UK TV show) a couple of nights ago. They restored some rusty chrome by rubbing it with aluminum foil dipped in water. They seemed surprised at how well it worked. I don't have any rusty chrome to try it on at this time. Google found some videos. e.g.

Video

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Definitely aluminum foil! This was past down to me by my grandfather who was a blacksmith and machinist by trade. The small aluminum chards will fill in the rust pits as you are removing the rust. I uses a little chrome polish to lubricate the foil and then finish with a good wax. Not permanent, but it will help to delay further rusting.


Tim

I did some research a little while ago on the whole aluminum foil thing. There is some science behind it. Apparently the Aluminum chemically reacts with the rust oxide. I tried it on my 54 original hubcaps and was happy with the results.

Aluminum foil is mostly made of aluminum oxide. Aluminum oxide is one of the most common elements used in sand paper. It works well for chrome. It also works well for rusty blued gun barrels.

For the most part Aluminum foil has a bright side and a dull side. Has anyone argued one side is better than the other when rubbing it in? ( I really had to think hard to come up with that question)!!

Alvin,

Are you bored?

It should be interesting reading the replies/postulation/theories.

It's obvious that it you want real shiny rusty chrome, you should use the bright side of the foil. If you want matte finish rusty chrome, use the dull side.

Yes - thanks, Kevin

Well it's not as cheap as robbin' your wife's pantry, but I recently tried this stuff and it works very good. A little goes a long way, so unless you have a bunch of crusty or pitted chrome, stick with your alum foil.

Just a quick note. There is no difference between the shiny and dull side on aluminum foil. During manufacturing two sheets are run through rollers face to face, so one side comes out with a different look. Both sides are exactly the same chemically. And years ago we used to use aluminum foil to polish the wheels on our bicycles.

Tim