Part 1: Polishing the wheels

Materials:

Directions:

  1. Remove the wheels from your bike, you wont be able to work on them while mounted to the bike
  2. Have the rubber taken off, this is not crucial but makes it a lot easier. It also can prevent damage to the tires.
  3. Remove the sprocket, it will only get in the way.
  4. If you are going to polish the whole thing, you don't need to mask off much else then the bearings/axle hole in the center of the hub.
  5. If you are going to just polish the outer rim, like we did, then you may want to mask off the center hub, and the center stripe.
  6. Put on your goggles, mask and gloves!! This stripper burns your skin quickly
  7. Dump some of the stripper into the smaller can
  8. Apply the stripper all over the parts of the wheel you want to strip, do it liberally, more is better.
  9. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes, you should see the paint start to bubble.Kawasaki Black painted wheels with the stripper applied, at this point most of the paint is gone already
  10. Rub it off, either with the paint brush or a cloth, Remember your gloves!
  11. Depending on the colour, it may mostly come off in one application (ie: Black painted Kawasaki wheels) or it may take many applications (ie: Green painted Kawasaki wheels, due to the primer coat they have)
  12. Reapply the stripper and let it sit again, repeat this process until most of the paint it removed
  13. If you run into stubborn paint, ie: Green rims, use steel wool in combination with the stripper.
  14. Don't worry too much about getting the stripper on the spokes or the center stripe if you are leaving those alone. If you look at those areas, you'll see it is rougher metal then the outer part. The stripper has a much, much harder time with this part. So the stripper sitting on it for a minute or two won't hurt it.
  15. Once you get the paint off, you'll have fairly good looking rims, but we of course want better.
  16. Start with the #1 Steel wool, and go over all the bare metal
  17. Move up to #00 and #0000, you won't see much difference, but it removes a lot of hairline scratches and swirls.
  18. Now apply polish, let it sit for a bit, and remove either by hand or with a high speed buffer. I'd recommend the buffer, and put on a good 10-15 coats of polish/buff, it will look a little better after each layer.
  19. You're pretty much done, now you need to decide how you want to protect them. You can either wax them (what we did) or you can clear coat them. Clear coating will make it easier to maintain, but you will lose some of the shine, and a clear coat my bubble/flake, or turn yellowish over time.
  20. If you're planning on doing the whole wheel, spokes and all, its a lot more work to get the paint off, and then sand the metal down to a smoother surface to it looks shiny

And once on the bike: