Cleaning Rusty Fuchs

[pdy]

Comments and Questions, please.

The inside of my Fuchs wheels are coated with
this layer of caked-on rusty shtuff. I think
it's a combination of pad dust and rotor fuzz
(to use the technical terms). Worse on the
fronts, as one might expect.

I tried a plastic brush, then a wooden stick,
progressing to a brass brush, then a soft steel
gasket scraper. Man, that shtuff is really
bonded to the alloy! Some of it kinda flakes
off, in a thin little rusty potato chip, but
most of it is really stuck. After an hour, I got
one of the wheels better, but not as clean
as I'd like it. With 14 wheels, this is gonna
be way too much work!

Observation #1: In all my years of Time Trials
with metallic and semi-metallic pads, I have
never had this problem. Must be the Hock Blew
pads, since this seems to have coincided with
my switch to the Hock Blew. Maybe they have a
particular chemical in them that bonds to the
rotor fuzz and the alloys. Great pads otherwise.

Observation # 2: I will endeavor to clean the
wheels after every event!

Question #1: Anybody else seen this?

Question #2: Got any good home remedies for taking
this off?

Question #3: Other methods - like blasting with
walnut hulls (or macadamias, or neutrons)?

Question #4: Recommendations for local shops to
do wheel restoration/refinishing at an appropriate
level (definitely not concours, but I'd like it to
look decent, and not cost too much)?

TIA,

Paul

[GeorgeB]

Paul,

You should definetely call Velvet Touch at 760-846-0942. Ask for Jason Baldwin. A little over a year ago, Discount tire butchured my Nissan Maxima wheels with a grinder when taking off the wheel weights. The guy actually ground into the the visible crome finished portion of the wheel while taking the weight off the inner side of the wheel. So Discount tire has this guy fixed all of thier screw ups. Jason did a fantastic job (will come to your house and do the repair if he can). I had previously researched extensively how to restore Fuchs since I was thinking about buying off ebay and restoring. After long research I decided it was far too much work. To make a long story longer, I asked Jason a bunch of questions , turns out he has done Fuchs, polished and or chromed, and or painted, and painted with polished paddles... Also his pricing for a set was cheaper that what I had been getting quoted by various shop although I don't remember the numbers now.

Good Luck

George

[ttweed]

Question #4: Recommendations for local shops to
do wheel restoration/refinishing at an appropriate
level (definitely not concours, but I'd like it to
look decent, and not cost too much)?

Paul-

I've had Fuchs wheels stripped and polished for $75/ea. at US Wheels in El Cajon--1000 W. Bradley Ave., Unit Q, (619)596-8033.

If you don't care for the spiffy, bright, polished look, or want to save a little more money, you might try media (glass bead) blasting. It will leave the wheels with a textured, matte look that is hard to keep clean, though. I think there are places that will do it for about $40-50/wheel, or you could have them sandblasted and powdercoated for about $60/wheel. Try El Dorado Sandblasting downtown on Commercial St.

Another thing to consider is to have them chemically stripped. US Wheel will take them up to LA and have them dipped for about $15/wheel. They do this before polishing them, if there are heavy deposits of paint or crud on them. They come back clean as a whistle, but a little blotchy and streaky on the surface finish. You could skip the polishing expense, and just have them dipped, then do a quick and dirty fine-sanding/scotchbrite pad finish on them to make them look uniform, if not shiney, and then rub with Vasoline before using. That will help make them easier to clean after events in the future, and you don't have to worry about chips in the paint, etc. That's what I'm planning on doing for my next set of track-use Fuchs.

TT

[Dan Chambers]

Paul:

If it's the insides of the wheels, and they're not annodized, try brake cleaner.

The SC I bought had wheels that were cruddy, rusty, dirty, corroded and pitted. With a terrycloth rag, I used brake cleaner on all the non-annodized parts with remarkable results. On the annodized parts I used Simple Green and a course plastic brush. Rubbing alcohol removed all the old weight-glue from previous balance weights. After all that, a polish and wax was the finishing touch. This layer of wax keeps the dust from migrating into the pours of the wheel metal.

One caution: the solvent in Brake Cleaner is a highly volatile and cancer-causing chloride-based agent. Use in a well ventilated are, don't inhale the vapors, and use latex or nitrile surgical gloves when working with this stuff. You'll need to apply cleaner to the rag with each "wipe" due to the rapid evaporation/high volatility of the Chloride-based solvents.

Be really careful not to get any on the annodized parts as it will "melt" annodizing right off. It will also melt any paint, so take the wheels off the car in case of accidental spills.

That was my trick. Good luck.