So attacked the last of the cleanup prior to build and by far the worst, the wheels!!, 30 years of crap, corrosion and crime, the before photo’s are after I degreased and washed them, that’s how grubby they were.
So I spent 3 hrs with a dremel and various, wire wheels, polish wheels, sand paper, scothbrite and wire wool, but nothing seemed to remove the corrosion and leave a reasonable finish.
So I ended up with a process that seemed to work pretty well – sanded the machined parts of the wheel with 150 grit until you remove all of the corrosion, then rub the area down with wire wool and WD40, this seems to give a nice satin finish almost the same as original. The rest of the painted area came up ok after scrubbing with WD40 and a nail brush. I had an old electric toothbrush that was a godsend to clean the corners of the wheel where you couldn’t get the brush in. probably 8 hrs worth of labor to get the wheels cleaned up, my fingers are numb now but they look good.
Here is a selection of before and afters:
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