OK, it's 5 degrees out and too cold to be in the garage. I ran out real quick and yanked the wheels off my BMW R-90 and headed down to the coal fired basement.
The rims cleaned up OK, spokes took to chrome polish except for the tiny rust spots, but the hubs are bad.
The aluminum hubs aren't pitted but chalky with white schmegma. I kissed them as best I could with a small wire brush but there are areas I can't reach. What do you think about using a device like the one below filled with something soft like baking soda?
Fill it with something else, softer?
Thanks for the help.
Dan
I blasted the E24 wheels before powder coating.
There was a powder coater around here who would blast and coat wheels for $80 each, which seemed like a steal. Blasting wheels can be tedious.
I would totally blast wheels for $80 a pop. You can do a couple of them in an hour, being thorough. Maybe I need to get into that as a side business.
Edit I missed the "coat" part. Reading comprehension failure.
Blasting them will give them dull finish (obviously). Not a bad look, but not shiny. If you know what stock 2nd gen Miata wheels look like, they look like that.
Have you tried oven cleaner (not the low odor kind). That will remove any stains / discoloration.
Using oven cleaner in an enclosed basement is likely a very bad idea BTW.
Back at a real keyboard now. I did the BMW wheels in the back yard with a 30# blast pot. It sucked. I don't know what BMW coats their wheels with, but the sand blaster wouldn't even scratch the surface even running the pressure up to 130 psi. I ended up using paint stripper to remove the clear coat. Unfortunately the stripper wouldn't touch the base coat so I was blasting again. One wheel took about 3 hours to strip, blast, and have ready for powder coating. Not a fun day.
For what you are doing, I would try bead blasting with glass beads first. They are more of a cleaner than an abrasive.
If you do it in the basement, you will end up with blast media EVERYWHERE. Probably up in the main house too. It will end up in places you didn't even know you had.
local place blasted some Al. wheels for me for $25 ea.
can't decide whether to re-paint or plasti-dip
R-90s are motorcycle wheels (sorry).
The outer ring and spokes are OK, it's the center.
So many nooks and crannies that can't be reached with a small wire brush, my fear is fuglying it up more.
Yeah, I figured they were MC wheels. I'd go with the bead blasting. Much better finish than sand or a cutting media. I've done a couple of carburetors with beads. It gives a pretty smooth finish on aluminum. Do a small test area.
I would not recommend using oven cleaner on aluminum.
Link to wired article
Article said:
Incidentally, don't use Easy-Off on aluminum — the metal serves as a room-temperature catalyst, breaking down the NaOH and releasing flammable hydrogen gas.
However, Marvel Mystery Oil and a toothbrush might just do the trick for ya. Skip to about 3:30 for the aluminum bit 
Aircraft Paint stripper will do a good job of stripping the clear coat. I don't recall it having a really strong odor like oven cleaner but cleaning that off without a hose during this time of year will be a challenge. It basically wrinkles up the clearcoat into a somewhat sticky film and you can remove it with a wire brush. I had to do about 3 applications to remove all of it from the wheel lips I stripped. Then I hand sanded up to 2000 grit and I hit them with polishing compound and a good quality orbital buffer. Worked like a charm.
You can only media blast the hub ~when it's unlaced~. I've restored many laced motorcycle wheels in the process of restoring old motorcycles - including a few air cooled boxer BMWs before they were really old. I unlaced the wheels, removed the bearings, distance tubes and shims from the hubs, taped up the bearing seats, blasted the hubs, rebuilt them w/ new bearings+shims, polished the aluminum rims, and relaced w/ new stainless steel spokes from Buchannon's. Then put on a new 3.25x19 ME33 on the front and a 4.00x18 ME99 on the rear. New wheels.
If you can't do that, use scotchbrite and small stainless steel TIG welder's brushes + lacquer thinner to detail the hub the best you can. It'll take an evening to do one wheel, but it'll look fine.
My wheels are too tedious to sand with all the spokes. Had em blasted for $15/each. Came out like so:
One other thought I wanted to mention too that I learned the wrong way is make sure that you are using a media and pressure that is suitable for aluminum too. I didn't know any better when I had a set of wheels powdercoated and I found some random place that sandblasted things like trailers, etc. so the media was too aggressive for the wheels. I had hoped and expected that it would even out with the powdercoat but it really didn't. I was also getting it coated with a subpar gun at my body's shop at work so in the end I got a "10 foot paintjob" quality finish to my wheels. You could tell that the sandblasting was too aggressive and left texture. Live and learn.
