Polishing my 4.6's wheels

[TravsX5]

If you've ever wondered what was under all that paint on your OEM wheels. I have done the work for you.

I want to warn anyone wanting to attempt this, that it is NOT a fast project. Currently i have 100+ hours just in sanding and polishing time. So if you want to attempt this, make certain you have secondary transportation or a second set of wheels and tires.

I started by having my wheels soda blasted, which looking back was a mistake. The soda blasters had my wheels for almost a month before they got around to them, and I could have just worked through the paint and primer with other methods.

Next I used 2" Scotch-Brite Roloc surface conditioning discs and worked through the rough casting to get down to the bare metal. The product numbers 051131-07515 (medium) and 051131-07516 (fine) are specifically made for aluminum.

I then started dry sanding at 320 grit, but I'll be honest. There were spots where i had to take a step backwards to 120 grit to get rid of marks I couldn't get out from the inital sanding with the conditioning discs. After removing all the marks i went back to 320. Yes this was a time consuming process.

Next i started wet sanding at grits

400
800
1000
2000

Then finally i buffed with a buffing wheel and metal polish.

I hope everyone enjoys the pics of my shiny 4.6's wheels.

As a side thought for anyone thinking that stopping at 800 or 1000 grit is enough to make mirrors out of your wheels. I have buffed them up at 800 and 1000 grit both and both was disappointing. 2000 grit was far superior IMHO. But thats just my opinion

[mrbmwx5]

Nice

[petener999]

Nice work

[valex9499]

very nice, will this work with any rim from Bmw?

[motordavid]

Wheels look Titz, ...but what are you/did you do to protect that new polished/abraded surface? Just curious
how you plan to keep that look and to protect against the inevitable oxidation, brake dust accum., and road grime.
GL,mD

[LeMansX5]

Nice first post.
I have polished the wheel lip previously. Very laborious process.
I used aircraft paint remover to strip to metal. and then sand from 320 to 2000 grit. I also did clear coat for protection. What did you use as buffing wheel?

[sethro]

That looks great!

[TravsX5]

not sure if this tactic will work on all BMW wheels.. i did mine as an experiment with the full intention that if they didn't come out like i wanted i was going to powdercoat them back the BMW silver.

And protecting the wheels was a concern of mine as well, so i did alot of asking around and reading alot of material on the web about what i should use. I finally came down to using meguiar's NXT tech wax 2.0, which seems to be working atm.

the polishing wheel and compound was both purchased at lowes, and came in a package of 3. There was a 2", 3", and 4" cloth wheel that you can attach to a die grinder (which is what i used)

[powers1]

A lot of hard work,indeed!You really have to have done this to appreciate how difficult it really is!As said,you need a lot of time and patience as well as the right materials.
Be careful in using paint remover as this will embed into the aluminium and oxidize it,meaning that shortly aftert you polished you wheels,these will get yellowish!!

I have not done it on My X5 wheels,as I like the oem silver look,but I did it on my previous cars!As TravsX5 says,you have to go down to as low as dry 2000 sandpaper to really remove the scratches which will be noticed when you polish !
In my case ,I found that using wet 800,1200,1800 in the final stage ,removed even the very fine scartches.

Also bear in mind that when you finally polish the wheels,heat up the wheel for better results as aluminium will polish better this way....

Congrats to TravsX5.....excellent work

BTW this procedure will work on ALL alloys....

[X Foomph]

Good job Travs,
I can only imagine how much hard work you've put in to get this result. I'd like to see before n after pics on your ride at some stage.