Pan car Sees wheels restore questions

[romulus22]

I'm to the point of wanting to clean up the Sees wheels on my pan car. Ive never messed with polishing and am hesitant as I don't want to ruin the surface or the gold anodizing. Any tips for those who have cleaned some up. Dealing with minor surface corrosion.

And since I've never been into pan cars I don't have the slightest clue what tires would go with them. The tires that were on them when I bought them were pretty cracked and the rears were severely indented from center being a smaller diameter. A link for the correct tires would be appreciated. Car won't be ran so compound or brand isn't an issue.

[RC10resto]

I would mask off the gold centers and take a sock or cloth and some good aluminum polish an go at it!
They don't look too bad so you should achieve good results by hand, just keep turning the cloth.

[Coelacanth]

Unless you have scratches, any surface discoloration should be pretty easy to remove without even having to wet-sand. As RC10resto said, make sure to mask off the gold centers, you don't want to scuff up the anodizing. The outer rings should be pretty easy to polish. A Dremel tool with a little buffing attachment and some 3M rubbing compound should get things nice and shiny, but if you want to be even more careful, do it by hand with a soft moist cloth & the rubbing compound. The Dremel just makes it a lot faster process.

[romulus22]

Sounds easy enough. What about tires? Are there certain ones I should buy to accommodate for the recess in the Sees wheels. And do they sell them trued to size.

[RC10resto]

no need to worry about the recess - you just need to find some doughnuts that fit your requirements, width & height. You can find some pre-trued tires, or do it yourself - try a search.

[Coelacanth]

I don't know about the tires, but here's a tip for masking the centers. Press a couple layers of good masking tape (I use the green stuff) on a piece of glass or other smooth, clean surface--but not your irreplaceable antique table. Find something round with the approximate diameter of your wheel centers, and trace around it with a pencil, then cut out the circles of tape with an X-Acto knife. Remove from the glass & stick the tape circles on the wheel centers and break out the elbow grease and buff out those bad boys.

[romulus22]

Thanks for the tips guys. Ill post pictures of the results.

[romulus22]

Using some of coelacanths guidance here we go.

A start picture.



Measuring



Half that and scribe some circles



Cut out



All masked off



I know aluminum is a naturally dirt metal but really. The towel looks like this after rubbing for 2 seconds. Start with a clean and repeat.



And "finished". There are a couple spots I could do better on but my hands are all cramped up. But they are worlds better.

[shodog]

That turned out well. I was going to suggest using fine steel wool to remove the surface corrosion.

[romulus22]

There are a couple spots that didn't come out perfect. I might do them again in the near future. Fine steel wool won't leave fine scratches?

[shodog]

There are a couple spots that didn't come out perfect. I might do them again in the near future. Fine steel wool won't leave fine scratches?

Really fine steel wool will leave a finish about like what you started with.

[slapshot1979]

I just redid a set of JSP clodbuster wheels, I used a old outdrive to mount the wheel to, nutted up and chucked in my cordless drill. spun it up and sanded with 1000grit till the marks came out then hit with the polish. Came out like new. you did a great job on those just adding my 2 cts.

[Coelacanth]

Now that's an improvement! I know some prefer the stock "matte alloy" finish, but for me, a high-polished aluminum is the bee's knees. It's hard work but well worth the effort. Great work on those.

When you're done with them, you can apply a bit of car wax to help protect the finish.

[urpaldan]

Bling! They look great. Another polish thats pretty good for alloy is Alu Belgom

503965.jpg (23.55 KiB) Viewed 1180 times

503965.jpg (23.55 KiB) Viewed 1180 times

Ive used it with similar success when i couldnt find mothers

[Brandon G]

If you can mock up a way to spin the wheels with say, a drill, you can use green scotchbrite to get rid of the discoloration and corrosion. It will give you the patina finish like the originals. You will need to protect the centers like you did with the tape.