Fixing an Aluminum Rim: A Step-by-Step Guide

When you hit a curb or scratch your rim, it can be frustrating and expensive to replace. However, with the right tools and techniques, you can fix an aluminum rim at home for real cheap. In this article, we will walk you through the process of polishing and restoring a scratched or damaged aluminum rim.

To begin, make sure the rim is completely dry before polishing it up and giving it a nice shine. Before you polish the rim, check that it is dry to prevent any accidents or messes. The rim is dry, so let's get started with the polishing process.

We're going to use a kit that comes with a foam polisher and attaches to the drill. This makes the job much easier and faster than doing it by hand. You can apply the polish directly to the cone and then rub it onto the rim at a slow speed. This prevents the polish from slinging off when you first use it, and once you work it into the rim at a slow speed, we can crank it up and give this baby a good polish.

The cone is great because it fits into the hard-to-reach places and is worth the price. Doing this by hand would take forever and wouldn't come out looking as good. Take your time, use the polish as needed, and buff the entire surface of the rim. Once you polish the whole rim, take a microfiber towel and buff the polish off by hand.

The result is an amazing shine! After polishing, you can stop here or put a clear coat over the metal to keep that shine without constantly having to polish the rim. Next, we're going to get some new gloves on and grab some rubbing alcohol so we can degrease the rim and prep it for paint. Get the towel wet with the alcohol and clean away.

Make sure you clean the entire rim and keep track of where you're cleaning so you don't miss an area, there are a ton of spokes here. The towel is not getting dirty anymore, and we've touched every surface on this rim. Now we want to let it dry and that should not take long because we used alcohol which evaporates quickly.

As the rim dries, I want to show you a neat little trick that I learned for masking off the tire because you don't want to get spray paint on the tire. The trick I learned while back is to use note cards to mask off the tire. Just slip a note card between the rim and the tire around the whole edge of the rim. This works faster and better than tape, usually, tape won't even stick to a tire; it just peels right off.

Also, don't forget to tape off the valve stem as well. And that looks good. You want to follow the instructions on your paint can. You want to use a clear gloss that is UV-resistant and non-yellowing. This is the same clear coat I used in my headlight restoration video, and it works great.

Follow the instructions and let's put down three even coats. Notice as I spray, I move around the whole wheel to get at different angles so I get complete coverage. There are a ton of spokes on this rim, so it's essential to do that. Also, notice I start spraying on the cards and then spray across the rim and stop spraying when I get to the cards on the other side.

I never start or stop spraying on the actual rim which helps keep the coat even and prevents orange peel. Okay, so that was the first of three coats, and each of the three coats is going to be a medium thickness coat. This isn't a light layer but also not a heavy layer that's going to run; you got to find that sweet spot.

Now let it dry for about five minutes, and then apply a second coat. Here is coat two. Excellent. Coat two is done, and in five minutes, we're going to finish with coat three. And here is coat three. This is looking great!

Alright, we're going to let the rim dry but before we let it dry, make sure you pull out these cards so they don't stick to the rim. After a few hours, the rim is dry to the touch. Let's install that Cadillac center cap.

I'm also going to remove this tape from the valve stem. Wow, look at this! The rim is finally done and it came out amazing. The curb rash is gone; there are no more scratches, and it looks perfect. My buddy is going to be real happy that his rim has been repaired, and you could easily do this at home for real cheap.

Now, if you're not subscribed, consider subscribing. Up on the screen are going to be a few videos. You can find the link to those videos in the description below. Also, in the description below are the links to any products I used in this video.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHey Guys, ChrisFix here! And today I'm gonna show you how to repair aluminum rims.So if you have aluminum rims and they have any kind of damage such as this curb or gutter rash, whatever you want to call itOr even if your rims have the clear coat that's bubbling upAnd it just doesn't look good at all,Or if you even just have simple scratches like thisThis video is gonna go through the process that will show you how to fix your rims to make them look really good again.So let's begin!With this process we're going to keep the tire on the rim to make it really simple, and we have the rim off the car.The next thing you want to do is remove the center cap from the rim.Just gonna want to pop this out.For most cars, just tap the cap outwards and it will pop out just like that.OK, so I just really just want to quickly outline the basic steps for fixing an aluminum rimAfter you get that center cap out, the first thing you want to do is clean the rim.After the rim is nice and clean, we're gonna work on all our scratches.And by work on it, I mean we're gonna sand em' down, and make em' nice and smooth.After we sand em' down, make em' nice and smooth, we're gonna strip the clear coat from the rim.After we strip the clear coat from the rim, we're gonna polish the whole rim.Make it nice and shiny.After the rim gets polished,we are gonna clear coat itwhich will put that protective barrier on it and afterthat clear coat dries we are done.The first step is we want to clean off the rimso just soapy water, what ever you wanna use.In this case I'm just using dish soap and water.You wanna remove as much dirt as possible so you can have a clean rim to work on.Now with this rim we have a lot of damage everywhere, we have damage all over the place.Pretty much the whole entire rim has to be redone.We are going make it go from looking like this...to this.So let's begin.So there is a couple of ways you can go about removing this scratches in your rim.My favorite way is using a rotary tool like this dremel with a flat disc.This is a 120 grit flat disc.It's a little to coarse, honestly you should use something around 200 grit but it will get the job done.After the flat discwe're gonna be using this sandpaper and make sure it's wet and dry sandpaper because we're gonna be wet-sanding.It's also a good quality sandpaper because the better quality the sandpaper, the better the job's gonna come out, and the better finish you're gonna get.With the sandpaper we're going to go for for 400 grit, to 600 grit, to 1000 grit, to 2000 grit.And then we're gonna buff the rimwith some type of metal polish.You want something that will buff aluminumand both of these will work so let me show you how to remove the scratches from the rim.I'm gonna show you how to remove this curb rash right hereand this process will work for any type of scratch on the rim.Since we're going to be using a rotary tool, make sure you use your safety glasses, and maybe something even to protect your lungsso you don't breathe this dust in.With this rotary tool, I'm staying between 10 and 20 thousand RPM'sand the key is you want to move this tool back and forth.You don't want it to dig into one area too long.You can see I'm not just focusing on the spot that has damage, I'm focusing onthe whole area because you don't want to just dig into that one little spot itwill create a divot and look really bad.You want to evenly sand this whole area with a little bit of focus on thatscratched area and you can see thatdamage just disappeared, it's not there anymore.Now you're probably asking why didn'tyou remove the clear coat first.Well the clear coat actually acts as aprotectant so if you go a little bit too farusing your flat disk or using anysanding method that clear coat's going toprotect the aluminum finish because youdon't need to sand everything and youcan see here that scratch is completely gone.So now let's get rid of these scratchesright here. Now we're going to use thesame strategy for these scratches keepthat flat wheel moving around a largearea and don't focus on one spotdon't worry over time the scratches willbe sanded away so be patient. If youfocus on one area you'll sand off toomuch aluminum and cause waves and thatwon't look good.So spread out the sanding over a largearea. Notice how I sand passed thescratches.I'm even sanding areas with noscratches which are right next to thedeep scratches so it's a smoothtransition.I'll tell you one thing it's addictingto watch this curb rash disappear.Now check this out! We removed all thescratches.I need to work on this over here but thearea we focused on and I showed you isperfectly smooth.This looks gorgeous. And that's all ittakes, a little bit of flat wheelkeep it moving around to make sureyou're not digging into one areathere's no waves there's no divots thisis one completely smooth piece which isexactly what you want.Check out this before and after; here'sthe before with the curb rash, and here'sthe after. Look at that difference!That is awesome and we aren't done we'regoing to make it look even better thanthis.And once you get all the scratches outwe can move on to the next step which isstripping the clear coat.So I'm going to do the rest of the rimand get everything to the same finish Ijust showed you. The whole rim iscovered in curb rash and scratches sothere's plenty for me to remove.Alright, I am done getting all thescratches out.This rim looks awesome there are nodeep grooves or scratches anywhere onthe rim, all that curb rash is gone.Look at that! Now this is looking great,the next step is going to be clean allthis aluminum powder off the rim andthen we're going to go and remove allthe clear coat.Honestly at this point, just get your hoseand hose it down.So this next step is my least favoritepart, and it's using a chemical stripperto strip the clear coat off the rim andthe reason why it's my least favorite partis because the stripper is not somethingyou want to get on your skin and youdon't want to get it on the tires either.And it's just that this is the most tediouspart and have to make sure all the clearcoat comes off.I put the stripper into a spray bottleand i'll rub it onto the clear coat witha sponge brush but before any of thatmake sure you dry the rim completely sothere's no water which will dilute thechemical stripper.Alright so we're just going to spraysome of this on here and work it in.You'll have to use a lot of thatchemical stripper so don't be afraid toreally cover the rim in a thick coat andmake sure you don't get any on the tireand if you do clean it off right awayafter the whole rim is coated, sit backand let the stripper do its thing.You can see how it works to bubble upthe clear coat and you can actually hearit cracking and popping away. After aboutan hour the clear coat is all bubbled upand now we're going to neutralize thechemical stripperso we can hose off the rim. Alright solet's go neutralize this. As you wipe onthis neutralizing chemical hopefullyyour clear coat comes right off.So now that this is neutralized i'mgoing to use an abrasive sponge toremove any clear coat that hasn't comeoff yet.If your clear coat doesn't come offeasily, you might need to use anothercoat of chemical stripper. For my rimabout eighty percent is coming off withthis first coat of stripper. Now hose itdown and let's see where we're at. Inthis case after one dose of clear coatstripper and some rubbing with anabrasive sponge you can see there'sstill some clear coat left on here sowe're going to have to go back with theabrasive sponge and the chemicalstripper until the clear coat iscompletely removed.This is the most difficult part and it'ssuper tedious but once you're done withthis, you're almost done.I'm going to use another coat ofchemical stripper and skip ahead towhere the clear coat is removed.You don't need to see me do this processall over again. OK, so after the secondcoat of stripper and then using thisabrasive sponge again we have removedall of the clear coat on this rim.This is the most difficult part andrealize that this doesn't get all theclear coat off.Which is why you have to go back in witheither an abrasive sponge or even withyour flat wheel and get all that clearcoat removed. It's very important to getthe clear coat completely removed. Nowthat the clear coat is offlet's move on to the sanding andpolishing step. The flat disk that weused is a hundred and twenty grit so wewant to make sure we move up in gritfrom there. Because we had that on arotary tool, it made it pretty smoothwe could startoff with 400 grit sandpaper. We're goingto be doing a wet sand which means thatyou want to use water or in this casesoap and water.The soapy water is going to help thesandpaper and prevent the aluminumpieces from sticking to the sand paperso you get a nice even sand.Don't be afraid to use too much soapywater.So with your 400 gritif you see any imperfections you wannamake sure you get those imperfectionsout now.Don't worry about the light scratchingthat is caused by the sand paper becausethat will slowly get buffed out but anydeeper scratches that you can see youwant to get out now, so don't be afraidto push hard in the areas that youreally need to get those scratches out.When you sand you want to sand in randomcircular motionsif possible, and just put a mediumpressure on the sand paper.You don't want to press so hard that youget exhausted and you don't want topress too light where the sand paperisn't smoothing out the surface. So wejust used our 400 gritnow we're going to go to our 600 gritand with the 600 grityou should just be smoothing down the400 grit scratches, the 600 grit won't beremoving any of the deeper scratches.So if you see any deeper ones go backwith your 400 grit and get them out.Now we're going to go from our 600 gritto 1000 grit. Now as you use the thousandgrit you should pretty much be seeingthe scratches disappear and you shouldstart seeing the surface get a littleshiny. After our 1000 gritwe're going to go to our final grit andthat's 2000. With the 2000 grit thesurface should feel really smooth andthe sand paper should be sliding reallyeasily.You'll also notice the room gettingshiny and there should be no visiblescratches. Any scratches that you see nowthat you might have missed can easily befixed by going back to the 400 gritsandpaper and working the way back up tothe 2000 grit.You only have to do that in the area youmissed you don't have to do the wholerim again.Alright, the rim has been sanded downfrom 400 grit all the way up to 2000grit and this is looking great.Now what we want to do is we want toinspect the rim and what you're lookingfor are any scratches that you need tocorrect before the final polish andlooking at this rim, well it looksreally good.No scratches are standing out so I thinkit's time to go polish it up and give ita nice shine. Before you polish the rimmake sure the rim is completely dry. Therim is dry so let me show you what we'regoing to use to polish.I got this kit that comes with the foampolisher and it attaches to the drilland it comes with polish so it makes thejob that much easier.What you're going to do is you can applythe polish directly to the cone and thenyou're going to rub that polish onto therim at a slow speed.This prevents that polish from slingingoff when you first use it and once youwork it into the rim at a slow speed wecould crank it up and give this baby agood polish. The cone is great because itfits into the hard-to-reach places andtrust me when I say it's worth the pricebecause doing this by hand would takeforever and it wouldn't come out lookingas good.So take your time use the polish asneeded and buff the entire surface ofthe rim.Once you polish the whole rim take amicrofiber towel and buff the polish offby hand.Oh wow look at this shine! Afterpolishing you can stop here or youcould put a clear coat over the metal tokeep that shine without constantlyhaving to polish the rim. Next to getsome new gloves on and grab some rubbingalcoholso we could degrease the rim and prep itfor paint. Get the towel wet with thealcohol and clean away.Make sure you clean the entire rim andkeep track of where you're cleaning so youdon't miss an area, there are a ton ofspokes here.OK, looking at our towel it's not gettingdirty anymore and we touched everysurface on this rim.So now we want to let it dry and thatshouldn't take long because we usedalcohol which evaporates quickly. As itdries i want to show you a neat littletrick that I learned for masking off thetire because you don't want to get spraypaint on the tire. So the trick i learneda while back is to use note cards to maskoff the tire. Just slip a note cardbetween the rim and the tire around thewhole edge of the rim.This works faster and better than tape. Usually tape won't even stick to a tireit just peels right off. And boom look atthat, looks kind of cool.Remember to tape off the valve stem aswell. And that looks good.You want to follow the instructions onyour paint can. You want to use a cleargloss that is UV resistant andnon-yellowing. This is the same clearcoat I used in my headlight restorationvideo and it works great.So follow the instructions and let's putdown three even coats. Notice as I sprayI move around the whole wheel to get atdifferent angles so I get completecoverage. There are a ton of spokes on thisrim so it's important to do that.Also notice i start spraying on thecards and then spray across the rim andstop spraying when i get to the cards onthe other side.I never start or stop spraying on theactual rim which helps keep the coatseven and prevents orange peel.OK, so that was the first of three coatsand each of the three coats is going tobe a medium thickness coat.This isn't a light layer but also not aheavy layer that's going to run. You gotto find that sweet spot.Now let it dry for about five minutesand then apply a second coat. Here iscoat two.Excellent. Coat two is done and in five minutes we'regoing to finish with coat three.And here is coat three. This is lookinggreat.Alright we're going to let the rim drybut before we let it drymake sure you pull out these cards sothey don't stick to the rim.After a few hours the rim is dry to thetouch. Let's install that Cadillac centercap.I'm also going to remove this tape fromthe valve stem. Wow, look at this.The rim is finally done and it came outamazing.The curb rash is gone there are no morescratches and it looks perfect.My buddy is going to be real happy thathis rim has been repaired and you couldeasily do this at home for real cheap.Now you know how to fix an aluminum rimand if you hit the curb or get your rimscratched up yet stinks but don't worryyou can fix it. Hopefully this video washelpful. If it was remember to give thevideo a thumbs up.Also if you're not subscribed, considersubscribing. Up on the screen are gonnabe a few videos. You can find the linksto those videos in the description below.Also in the description below are thelinks to any products i used in thisvideo.\n"