Cleaning Inside of the Rim Advice

A

Arrwin

New member
Hi guys,



This is my inaugural post here. Whoohoo! I will be entering my car in her first concours in a couple of weeks. It will only be in the "Street Car Class" (exterior only). I was wondering how you guys clean the inside of the wheel? Do all you guys take the wheels off? The rims don't really have enough space to fit my hand through, so i'm thinking of getting this tool to get in there.



Think this will work or just a waste or $?

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Here is a pic of my wheels:

Kinesis_Wheels.jpg




Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! :)
 
Well, there sure is no harm in taking off the wheels and doing them. Heck, you could even take them off and throw on a few coats of wheel sealant and make them easier to clean in the future. However, what I do is I use this brush: http://www.danase.com/vibrdubr.html to clean the inside of my wheels from the outside. Does a great job for a dailer driver non show car.
 
The brushes specified above are OK but they really need either a longer handle or a detachable extension to make cleaning the insides of multi slotted wheels while mounted much better.
 
I've been using the Meguiar's Gold Class Wheel Spoke Brush with excellent results. This is by far the best tool for cleaning inside the rim and behind the spokes.



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LINK
 
IMO if your going to enter her in a show, then take the wheels off to thoroughly clean them and clean the wheel wells, including suspension, brakes etc. too.
 
Ya, I take my wheels off once a year and give the insides a good scrub with some wheel cleaner and APC. In between I just use that Dupont wheel cleaner and a solid brush, like the Meg's tire brush.
 
For a car show, yeah wheels off before every event, and be easy on the brakes on the journey to the show.



Like others have said get a good sealant on there at the same time.
 
I gotta tell you...my rims are nothing to brag about (stock, painted with clear shot over it) but one weekend I became very bored and decided (after reading a few similar posts here) to remove my tire/rim and just scrub that bad boy down.



I took each rim off one at a time, scrubbed the backside down with a nylon brush and ajax. Then squirted it down with some simple green, let sit for 10 minutes and scrubbed it down. Finally I blasted the backside with some Meguiars Wheel Brightner (their acid based cleaner). THe results......WOW...HOLY WOW !!! The wheels looked as if they had 0 miles on them.



I had never cleaned the backside of the wheels since I bought the thing so that was a number of years worth of grime and muck piled on back there. Since then they have been easy to keep up with the meguiar's brush noted on the post above. I think if you have never cleaned the backside of your wheels it's easier and worth your time to simply remove them and clean them up real nice.
 
Asonyexec said:
I gotta tell you...my rims are nothing to brag about (stock, painted with clear shot over it) but one weekend I became very bored and decided (after reading a few similar posts here) to remove my tire/rim and just scrub that bad boy down.

I took each rim off one at a time, scrubbed the backside down with a nylon brush and ajax. Then squirted it down with some simple green, let sit for 10 minutes and scrubbed it down. Finally I blasted the backside with some Meguiars Wheel Brightner (their acid based cleaner). THe results......WOW...HOLY WOW !!! The wheels looked as if they had 0 miles on them.

I had never cleaned the backside of the wheels since I bought the thing so that was a number of years worth of grime and muck piled on back there. Since then they have been easy to keep up with the meguiar's brush noted on the post above. I think if you have never cleaned the backside of your wheels it's easier and worth your time to simply remove them and clean them up real nice.
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I would be very careful using Ajax and Simple Green on the wheels. Ajax could scratch them and letting Simple Green sit for 10 minutes could easily damage the wheels coating or oxidize the wheels if they have no coating.
 
kgb said:
I would be very careful using Ajax and Simple Green on the wheels. Ajax could scratch them and letting Simple Green sit for 10 minutes could easily damage the wheels coating or oxidize the wheels if they have no coating.
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And dont use brake clean, :grinno: a long time ago I was trying to clean my OLD wheels, that are not on the car and will be used as winter wheels soon, and I just couldn't get them all clean, so I decide it would be good to try some brake clean, because its brake dust after all right. Well it ruined my clear coated wheels :furious: , which I now know is clear coated. Very stupid, I know, but now I'm going to get them powder coated. :xyxthumbs
 
Richt said:
For a car show, yeah wheels off before every event, and be easy on the brakes on the journey to the show.



Like others have said get a good sealant on there at the same time.
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Ya, easy on the brakes, I also find myself trying not to use the brakes on the way to a show. :lol
 
Ha ha, likewise!



For cleaning wheels, brake calipers, wheel arches/wells I use Autoglym engine and machine cleaner.
 
Arrwin- Welcome to Autopia!



Yeah, pull 'em off and really do the inside/backside right. With a few coats of a good sealant (I usually use KSG, but I've used UPP too) it'll be easy to keep them clean with just carwash shampoo.



Be careful with the brushes. I use the EZ Motorcycle brush on some wheels, but not on the "good cars" and I would be really wary of using that Meg's brush on your wheels.



Likewise, the tool you show works OK but it's too aggressive for my "good" wheels and I never found it to work all that great for light work. Not bad for cleaning up sorta nasty ones though. Hard to get into the tight spots, at least for me. There were always areas I couldn't reach with it and when my last one wore out I didn't bother replacing it. I prefer milder approaches that also get into the tight spots.



Large foam swabs work, but they take a little time. Wrapping a MF on long stick that you can poke through the holes works OK too. Seems like everybody sells them these days, I got mine from Griot's but I've seen them at Meguiar's and IIRC TOL too. You might have to move the car a little to get the area behind the caliper if the fit is too tight to work with. A pair of MF gloves could be a convenient way of cleaning the back sides of the spokes and maybe around the hub, but you won't be able to reach a lot of the rim.



It's surprising what a good sealant and careful, frequent cleaning can do. When I pull my wheels to rotate them or put on the snows, the backs aren't the huge chore they used to be; I can get them like new with hardly any effort at all since they don't get bad any more. Same goes for wheelwells and brake parts. Once you *get* them clean, it's easy to *keep* them clean- usually you only need a spray bottle of slightly stronger-than-normal carwash shampoo.



Oh, and BF continues to amaze me on painted calipers. The black ones on the S8 still look great and I've only been cleaning them with car wash soap for the longest time.
 
Oh one more thing - a lot of folks use those Mr. Clean magic erasers on their wheels. I did too until I realized what they are made of. I personally would stear clear of those since you're actually just sanding the surface of the rim.
 
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