Hey guys,

I have a set of RH Pro J8s. The spokes are super black chrome and I believe the lips are high polished aluminum. Ive had them sitting around for a while so I wanted to fix the lips.

Story goes.. To be honest, I got lazy and instead of using soap and water which I normally do, I went and bought a "safe for all wheel" Meguire cleaner. After I washed the car, I sprayed the cleaner on all the wheels, gave them a little scrub with my wheel brush and then I hit them with the hose. The spokes are fine, due to the chrome coating, but the lips are all damaged. I guess the cleaner fogged up the lips.

I went out and bought some Detailers Pride wheel cleaner and some Wenol metal polish. The cleaner worked great in getting the grime off but I still couldn't get the lips polished back to a shine. I'm thinking about getting a Mother's power ball and trying the metal polish again. What do you guys think??

The pics are after a very quick polish with just my hands.

 

You damaged the anodized coating. You will have to strip it off now and repolish the wheel. A mother's powerball isn't going to cut it. Most likely you'll want to sand down the anodizing and work up to 2000 grit, polish using a kit like this http://www.hobbytool.com/aluminummetalpolishingkit.aspx, then follow up with the mothers powerball and metal polish. Since those wheels can't be taken apart, I would expect it to take anywhere from 6-8 hours per wheel if you are doing it for your first time

 

^^^^^ Yup.
I just realized they are annodized and the only way to get them clear is to strip the annodized and repolish them. I spoke with a wheel guy and he said you can use this spray on oven cleaner that has lye in it. That will strip the annodize off and then you can polish them to a shine with 2000 grit sand paper and metal polish. Thanks redlude..

Since Ive got some time on my hands and these wheels are just sitting in my garage I am going to try it myself. If it doesn't work there is a guy here that will do it for 50 bucks a wheel. Or I might even have the lips painted a gloss black or something.

I'll let you all know how it goes..

 

Screw it, just paint them black.