Do you have a chrome finish on your aluminum allow wheels? If so, over time you probably have noticed the chrome has started to scratch and deteriorate, giving you a less than desirable look. You can always strip down the chrome finish in order to show off the aluminum, or you can give it an entirely new finish all together. However, in order to do this you need to know how to remove chrome from wheels. This is not something that is terribly difficult or something you need to take your vehicle into the local mechanic shop to do. All you need is a few cleaning items and an hour or so and you can have your wheels free of the chrome finish.
To start, you need a few general items, many of which you might already have in the garage. This includes a tire iron, pry bar, wheel polish, medium grind sandpaper, 1200 grit sandpaper and soft cloths. You might want a power sanding, but if you do not already have one you do not need to go out and purchase one.
Start by removing the wheel rims from your vehicle. To do this, you need to unscrew the wheel from the wheel base with the tire iron, then remove the tire from the wheel rim with a pry bar. Once the rim is off, take some of the wheel polish and coat the entire wheel with it. Now, allow the polish to sit about five minutes or so. After the five minutes, sand down the surface of the wheel with the medium grit sandpaper until you have removed most of the plating. This is where the the power sanding comes in handing if you have one, but if not, you are able to do this on your own.
With the majority of the chrome off, apply another coat of the polish onto the wheel once again and let it sit for another five minutes, then sand the wheel down with the 1200 grit sandpaper. After the sandpaper has removed the majority of the rest of the chrome, apply the polish one last time and have it sit for another five minutes. Clean off the wheel with the steel wool in order to remove the rest of the plating. This is also going to help polish the metal alloy while it removes the rest of the chrome plating.
Rinse off the wheel and allow it to dry. You now have a chrome free aluminum alloy wheel that you can either apply another coating of chrome to or any sort of color you might want. Regardless of what you are looking to do, you are able to apply the coating to the vehicle now.
