polishing tarnished aluminium with Belgom

Hi, there are a lot of threads asking whats the best way of polishing and restoring aluminium parts. There are plenty of different ways of doing it already so I wont get into that but I thought this might interest people here...

I have bought [polishing bits from www.thepolishingshop.co.uk a few times and always found them to be helpful so I emailed them and asked what they would recommend to protect car alloy wheels from the winter roads. They suggested Belgom Alu as it not only polished but also contains a wax so protects as well. They were confident/kind enough to send me a small sample to try out.

Given that it has some polishing abilities I thought I would offer it a real challenge, my Audi TT wheels.

I stripped and polished these on Christmas day last year then left them for 2 months so had corroded quite badly...



I used a small amount of the polish on a rag, this was the result of about 30 seconds work...



and another 30 seconds...



Wheel done, cleaned up and quickly reapplied. left to haze over before polishing off



I realise the results are not perfect - lets be honest the wheels really need flatting back off and re-polishing from scratch but given the state they were in I am very impressed with how they had come up. Autosol wouldn't have achieved this, I am confident of that.

I would love to show you a picture now to see how well the product has protected the wheels but I have sold the car and the new owner painted them white last week!

you need to give the wheels a coat of clear laquer or you'll be forever polishing them.

To be honest once they get grubby bad I tend to get them refurbed, they are quite cheap to do and will last for years

The problem with lacquer (even wheel lacquer) is that once it starts to craze or peel, you've got to take the lot off and start again.

What I did with my half-painted half-polished Triumph 2000 wheels was every month or so just run some fine wire wool and autosol over the polished bits; they always looked mirror-finish.

this was more meant to be an example of what can be achieved with belgom generally rather than requesting advice on the wheels. (hence it being in this section)

i might re-do this on some cranks

lewis1641":1u8d7rz6 said:

this was more meant to be an example of what can be achieved with belgom generally rather than requesting advice on the wheels. (hence it being in this section)

i might re-do this on some cranks

Click to expand...

Hi, yeah I would be interested in seeing how the belgom goes.
I'm nearing completion of a large polishing project and am brandishing Autosol in one hand, but on the other,... I'm interested in finding out what else is out there that's best for preserving the shine and alu surface.

Alot of elbow grease needs to be done justice!

Try mothers polish , it's what all the VW drag boys use I have just done the zaskar with it and was surprised

When I have motorbikes with alloys I used to polish with Autosol then wipe over with a rag covered in a good glug of oil.
When they got covered in brake dust it would just wipe off with a rag rather than need serious scrubbing.