Polishing E1 rims? - CEG Archives

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As we all know,the E1 rims are aluminum,but painted silver. I've been thinking about stripping the paint and ploshing the wheels so they come out as nice bare polished aluminum,which will look pretty nice imo. Has anyone done this?

A guy I know has a Mazda RX7 Turbo,and it had the stock rims when he bought it,and the stock aluminum rims are just fugly,but they were polished down to bare aluminum and they looked absolutely beautiful. Hopefully I can do that with my E1's and add a little bling and make them look a little more unique.

Sounds like it be cool! You should try it.

you could try some wheel acid (which we use to clean rims at Mazda).we only leave them on for a minute then we hose it off.....im sure that stuff will strip the paint....then you could polish them.

I doubt it.

if you do it, put up some results. if they turn out that would look great I bet.

I'd probably do it myself if it works

Originally posted by Marky:
I doubt it.

I agree, it will probably just damage the paint. A soft media blast (not sand) would provide a lot less work, and it would be cleaner.

Wow,so nobody has actually done it before? I'm thinking they would look really nice and shiny if they came out well.

I'm not worried about damaging the paint or anything if I screw up,because I can always repaint them,or have them powdercoated,plus they already have some nicks and stuff on them,so no worries. When I've got some spare time,maybe I'll look deeper into this and see what I can do with 'em.

Someone's done it. I've seen it.

Originally posted by Kremithefrog:
Someone's done it. I've seen it.

prove it!

I'd like to see how this looks too...

Originally posted by SleeperTour:
As we all know,the E1 rims are aluminum,but painted silver. I've been thinking about stripping the paint and ploshing the wheels so they come out as nice bare polished aluminum,which will look pretty nice imo. Has anyone done this?

A guy I know has a Mazda RX7 Turbo,and it had the stock rims when he bought it,and the stock aluminum rims are just fugly,but they were polished down to bare aluminum and they looked absolutely beautiful. Hopefully I can do that with my E1's and add a little bling and make them look a little more unique.

Try the search button, it works wonders

Originally posted by Swazo:

Originally posted by SleeperTour:
As we all know,the E1 rims are aluminum,but painted silver. I've been thinking about stripping the paint and ploshing the wheels so they come out as nice bare polished aluminum,which will look pretty nice imo. Has anyone done this?

A guy I know has a Mazda RX7 Turbo,and it had the stock rims when he bought it,and the stock aluminum rims are just fugly,but they were polished down to bare aluminum and they looked absolutely beautiful. Hopefully I can do that with my E1's and add a little bling and make them look a little more unique.

Try the search button, it works wonders

that was really....uh....helpful....

Kremit,did they look any good?

My car is going in next spring for custom paint and body work,so maybe the guy doing it can look into the wheels for me.

I have a set of Factory Chrome E1's, came on car from dealer when bought new. May very well have been a dealer installed option.

Also, I have actually seen one other car with chrome E1's. Saw on a car in a parking lot to a person who I know doesn't post here.

So I know 2-sets exist.

Originally posted by SleeperTour:
Kremit,did they look any good?

Yeah. Maybe FMR has a picture.

The older MKIII SUpra guys do it to their wheels...I did it to mine back in the day...stripped the paint with Aircraft paint remover in an aerosol can...then just buffed the wheel and it was mirror-like...it was very smooth underneath already...so grinding or polishing needed (granted they were Supra wheels, but you may get lucky)

Originally posted by SleeperTour:

Originally posted by Swazo:

Originally posted by SleeperTour:
As we all know,the E1 rims are aluminum,but painted silver. I've been thinking about stripping the paint and ploshing the wheels so they come out as nice bare polished aluminum,which will look pretty nice imo. Has anyone done this?

A guy I know has a Mazda RX7 Turbo,and it had the stock rims when he bought it,and the stock aluminum rims are just fugly,but they were polished down to bare aluminum and they looked absolutely beautiful. Hopefully I can do that with my E1's and add a little bling and make them look a little more unique.

Try the search button, it works wonders

that was really....uh....helpful....

Kremit,did they look any good?

My car is going in next spring for custom paint and body work,so maybe the guy doing it can look into the wheels for me.

For someone who couldn't figure out that they need paint stripper to..... strip paint, I'm sure you need a step by step how-to/hand holding to get something like this done.

Search outside of CEG, there is TONS of info on polishing aluminum wheels

Eastwood Company makes an awsome kit, as does POR15.

I say do it and it would be another first in the CEG. Who knew there'd be "first" this far into the life of the CEG

Fmr12B - you're talking about chrome wheels. He's asking about polishing the wheels. I'm sure there are plenty of sets of wheels that have been chromed.

As Swazo's link pointed out, I stripped two E1 wheels of their finish. The aluminum is not smooth underneath and was pitted and very rough. It would take more than just stripping the paint and adding some polish to get them to look good. Unfortunately, I never had the time to finish the job. Maybe one day I'll get back to it, but it will require work.

A chrome set has been found!!! it's actually for sale in the classifieds, and i gotta say E1's look pretty cool in chrome.

Originally posted by 1314:
The aluminum is not smooth underneath and was pitted and very rough. It would take more than just stripping the paint and adding some polish to get them to look good.

I wonder how anodizing the wheels would work out...?

Chrome E1's =