Baked on Brake Dust

Ok I have a question on brake dust. I have cleaned every kind of wheel out there and I was just wondering if any of you out there have come across wheels that you just can't get clean? By this I mean do you ever come across a wheel that you are unable to get to look the way you want it to? I recently have had a couple different kinds of wheels that gave me hell. (Unfortunately no pics) One was a factory VW wheel and the other was an uncoated aluminum aftermaket. I have degreasers, APC's, acidic wheel cleaners, you name it and I can't get them totally clean. Does anybody have any tips or tricks that I guess I have missed? Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated I have been wanting to ask this question for a while and finally got around to it.

 

I have had some experience with VW coated wheels with really bad baked on dust. If it is really bad then the clear coat has been eaten away literally as brake dust is very corrosive, only thing that helped make them look decent was a acidic cleaner followed by claying the wheels with a aggressive clay. This did not get it all off but made it better.

 

That's pretty much what happened for me as well. The brake dust had definately eaten through the clear and wouldn't come off. Glad to hear that i'm not the only one who has run into this problem.

 

Ardex Buster and Meguiar's Wheel Brightener.

http://www.detailingbliss.com/forum/f35/wheel-cleaning-help-please-10390.html

^^^did they look like this?

 

I have had to deal with that type before but how would you get that off of an uncoated aluminum wheel that you can't use wheel brightener on? Or any acidic cleaner on due to it staining.

 

Get as much as you can get off then use a mag polish?

 

Megs WB cut 4:1 for clear coated and DG aluminum cleaner for uncoated alum wheels..I have a gallon of it..I could trade you something for 8 or more oz of the DG if you're interested. PM me if you are.

 

No matter what, some wheels won't come out 100%. I had a (otherwise beautiful) 1993 Mazda RX7 that I did earlier this week, and Wheel Brightener, polishing, nothing would make them look great. Even though they were totally clean and free of brake dust once I was through with them, the brake dust had sat on the rims waayyy too long and etched the surface of the wheel giving them a dull, almost dirty look.

Machined Aluminum wheels are awful too, up here in the rust belt they start to develop very noticable pitting after just one winter and once they are etched, they just aren't able to look 100% again.

I know it kills me to see less than stunning wheels, sometimes there is just nothing you can do.

 

I used a combination of zep purple degreaser and zep citrus APC stuff and it seemed to remove the brake dust for me quite nicely, I haven't used megs WB however. The only thing it didn't seem to remove was the tar. Other than that, I was quite suprised at how well it worked for it's price.

 

^^^ interesting combo there. seems like zep makes some decent stuff.

 

Tar and any remaining brake dust can be removed with Mothers PowerMetal Aluminum applied by hand with a microfiber towel.

A high alkaline wheel cleaner and a bug/tar scrubber can really do a number on baked-on brake dust and tar, as well.

 

The original wheels off my 87 560SL were so bad on the back sides of each wheel that no cleaner I tried would touch it. Neither of the previous two owners had ever cleaned them. The brake dust was more of a "brake crust". I figured that I had nothing to lose and tried steaming the back side of one wheel with one of those little Scunci steamers that we had with a plastic brush attachment. Worked well. It seemed to break up the top crust and help disolve the stuff enough to wash off. After they are all clean, I plan to start claying them to get the last of the crud and tar off. These are painted MB wheels, so the steam treatment may not work for other types of coatings.

Before:


After about 45 minutes of steaming and rinsing:



Still a little shine left! I just could not imagine putting these wheels back on the car without cleaning them.