Alloy wheel cleaning

[Pete940]

I recently bought this for reaching those fiddly areas. It seems to do the trick. 1" dia head.
https://www.slimsdetailing.co.uk/pro...-8-small-brush

[940volvoman]

Well, Baggy 798, if my wheels come up as clean as yours I would be very pleased. Unfortunately my wheels have been neglected with many years of caked on brake dust.

Now I'm not sure what to do. Did the aspirin do anything at all? I might still try before investing in anything else(or is Dave just messing with me??? lol)

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by 940volvoman

Well, Baggy 798, if my wheels come up as clean as yours I would be very pleased. Unfortunately my wheels have been neglected with many years of caked on brake dust.

Now I'm not sure what to do. Did the aspirin do anything at all? I might still try before investing in anything else(or is Dave just messing with me??? lol)

Aspirin does work but obviously if there's no iron-based brake dust, it won't. I've used the aspirin and it worked well on my wheels, also neglected with years of brake dust. Needs time to work though and ideally needs to be the 300mg tablets, not the 75mg version that's easy to pick up off the shelf.

[Forrest]

Well, I was thinking of giving the salicylic acid a go at some stage but was planning to buy a sachet of it rather than mess about with aspirin.

I have seen a video on YouTube of someone using hydrochloric acid and ammonia. This made a lot of fumes but I cannot remember how effective it was. These are both cheap and readily available but personally I’m not minded to try it.

Car washes on the other side of the pond used to use dilute hydrofluoric acid to clean wheels. This is incredibly nasty stuff which will attack the human body in a number of ways and in high strengths can dissolve glass. I think it rates as a very bad idea.

At the end of the day any acid will probably loosen iron brake dust, and the stronger the acid the quicker it will do it. The trick will be to find one that leaves a reasonable proportion of the alloy wheel intact. Likewise your brakes unless you’re planning on removing the wheels from the car first.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Forrest

Well, I was thinking of giving the salicylic acid a go at some stage but was planning to buy a sachet of it rather than mess about with aspirin.

I have seen a video on YouTube of someone using hydrochloric acid and ammonia. This made a lot of fumes but I cannot remember how effective it was. These are both cheap and readily available but personally I’m not minded to try it.

Car washes on the other side of the pond used to use dilute hydrofluoric acid to clean wheels. This is incredibly nasty stuff which will attack the human body in a number of ways and in high strengths can dissolve glass. I think it rates as a very bad idea.

At the end of the day any acid will probably loosen iron brake dust, and the stronger the acid the quicker it will do it. The trick will be to find one that leaves a reasonable proportion of the alloy wheel intact. Likewise your brakes unless you’re planning on removing the wheels from the car first.

Good idea not messing about with hydrochloric acid and ammonia!

The fumes are ammonia chloride and that is also produced in liquid form which can decompose many things :

https://greedhead.net/what-is-the-ch...20and%20HCl%3F

Oddly it's also a good fertiliser and when mixed with sugar becomes explosive.

Not nice stuff at all!

If you're into buying sachets of salicylic acid, you could also try citric acid although that won't give a visible reaction with the iron particles in the brake dust.

[940volvoman]

I've manage to get hold of two packets of the 300 mg soluble aspirin today to give it a shot. The (spare) wheel is off the car so I just need to find a bit of time...

I'll report back with some photos if I can find how to upload them...

Shaun

[SalvadorP]

Originally Posted by baggy798

Well I can confirm that aspirin tablets don't do jack****. I guessed as much seeing as no one on the entire internet has ever mentioned it.

Tried 6 sainsburys tablets in a 500ml bottle.



Let it sit for a while, brake dust didn't loosen and turn red.



Thought bollocks to this walter mitty ****, cleaned it off with dettol surface cleaner and a soft sponge.



VS the other side with just cleaning it with dettol surface cleanser:





No difference in loosening the dust in the corners.

These are such good looking wheels. Which model are they from?

[baggy798]

The design first appeared as an AMG option for Mercedes in the 80s, no name just simply called '5-spoke road wheel'. So popular were they that a UK company called Penta made replicas, these are a set of those. Ironically, the originals are now called 'AMG Pentas'. Not sure what this particular set was for, maybe Ferrari or Lotus of the time period? They're 5x108.

I'm sure I read somewhere that they're the first ever alloy 5 spoke wheels for production cars?

Here's a set of the original AMG Pentas for their widebody models:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175249243385

[SalvadorP]

Originally Posted by baggy798

The design first appeared as an AMG option for Mercedes in the 80s, no name just simply called '5-spoke road wheel'. So popular were they that a UK company called Penta made replicas, these are a set of those. Ironically, the originals are now called 'AMG Pentas'. Not sure what this particular set was for, maybe Ferrari or Lotus of the time period? They're 5x108.

I'm sure I read somewhere that they're the first ever alloy 5 spoke wheels for production cars?

Here's a set of the original AMG Pentas for their widebody models:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175249243385

Wait, WHAT? Is that 10k pounds or am I drunk?

They do look nice though. That volvo center cap is from another type of wheel and happened to fit? Or did you have to mess with it?

I've found several listings of them locally, about 1k, these ones in particular look pristine:
https://es.wallapop.com/item/llantas...s-16-899322622