How to Clean & Coat the INSIDE of your car's wheels

[Mike Phillips]

How to Clean & Coat the INSIDE of your car's wheels



For those of you that like every part of your car detailed to the max! Or for those of you that offer complete wheel and tire detailing...


I had an axle flange gasket leaking on the Corporate 14-Bold Rearend on my truck so I had to replace the gasket. I also wanted to rotate the tires from front to rear. I also wanted to coat the inside of my BRP Rims and seal the inside of the tires with TUFF Shine Tire Clear Coat. I also wanted to check and re-torque all the lug nuts, just to make sure... So I decided to knock out 5 projects all at once and then share it all here on the forum.


Undoing the other guys botched assembly work
Keep in mind, I bought this truck this way, that is some Billy Bob used high heat silicone when they assembled the axle to the hub. First you don't need to use silicone when you install a new gasket and torque the axle shaft down properly and second, when you do use silicone you use a thin film, not gobs of the stuff like you see here.





I covered the disc brake assembly because I'm going to be spraying solvent and I don't want to transfer anything onto the brake discs by accident.





No picture of this but I did stick small tube on the end of our Shop-Vac and sucked out all the dirt and silicone out of the threads where the axle bolts go and then swapped them with solvent followed by oil using the foam detailing sticks we sell on Autogeek.net



This is only half of what came out of the threaded holes..



Nice...





Okay, someone else's mess cleaned up and now it's time to get the back side of the wheels and tires cleaned up.




That's ugly, even if you don't see it because it's on the inside of the truck it's still ugly...




Sunny Saturday in Sunny Stuart, Florida... I'm going to use Detailer's Wheel Cleaner to clean both the wheels and the tires.




Ugly...




Ugly....




I sprayed and scrubbed the back of the tires THREE times to get them pretty clean. I'm not aiming to win a car show with the back of my tires so I'm not looking for perfection but at the same time I want them clean and I want the TUFF Shine Tire Clear Coat to properly bond to the rubber.






Dum de dum dum dum.... could be at the pool...




Autogeek carries dozens of car detailing brushes, to clean just about any shape, size or design of wheel...














This brush is thick but with a little twisting I was able to get it to bottom out inside the wheel barrel to get it really clean...




Okay, after sweating for about an hour both wheels and tires are surgically clean...

[Mike Phillips]

Next I'm going to clean the paint on the backs of the wheels using Detailer's Coating Prep Polish by hand...




The paint is clean but kind of skanky looking...




Microfiber applicator to provide some gentle scrubbing power...




Learning how to really use my Canon T5I camera to capture motion...




Wiped the excess residue out with a microfiber towel...




The below picture actually show just how clean I was able to get the wheels when I washed them as I'm not pulling any dirt with the coating prep polish...




Time to apply Detailer's Wheel Coating, for this I'm using a Blue Finger Pocket, note the hard to capture spray coming out of the nozzle shot...




Next I sprayed some directly onto the wheel...




Rubber the coating in really well.... I don't ever want to do this again if I don't have to, I could have been at the pool on this day...




Coating everything, including the backs of the spokes...








And there we go, the backs of the wheels are completely coated and protected. This will make cleaning them faster and easier into the future!

[Mike Phillips]

Next I transferred some TUFF Shine Tire Clear Coat to a spray bottle and misted it all over the rubber and then scrubbed it in using a Horse Hair Brush. Kind of a Caveman Technique but it was the best way to work the product into and around all the lugs.
(no picture of the horse hair brush being used to scrub)




After scrubbing the tires to death, I then used the Tornador Air Gun to Tornado Blast any excess residue into nothingness...




This is one of my favorite tools, it really works great!

[Mike Phillips]

Okay wheels and tires are clean, coated and sealed, now to clean up my wheel jewelery real quick before assembly. We also carre Wurth Clean-Solve and 1z Multi-Oil on Autogeek.net a well as the cool little foam detailing sticks. I simply rubbed the outsides down with some oil on a rag and then swabbed the insides of the lug nuts and then blue them out with the Tornador Air Gun. After that I swabbed them again with a little oil.








Time to install the axle shaft with a new NAPA Gasket...




Neat and clean...




This wheel and tire was on the front... now it's getting installed on the back. The rearend has posi-track gears and it's kind of hard to avoid spinning the back tires over all the time so I need to equally wear out the front at over $800.00 a piece... got to get my money's worth out of them...




That's what I'm talking about...




A few weeks ago, before the coatings were introduced I machine scrubbed the outside of the tire and then sealed them with TUFF Shine Tire Clear Coat.




Here's the front, ready to go togheter...




Done!


And done...

[Mike Phillips]

Here's all the cool products and tools I used for this project...



On Autogeek.net


Detailer's Paint Coating Prep

Detailer's Wheel Coating

Detailer's Wheel Cleaner

TUFF SHINE Tire Clear Coat

Tornador Air Blow Out Gun

Horse Hair Brush

Carrand Sheepskin Wheel Cleaner

Carrand Deluxe Tire & Bumper Brush

Lake Country Detail Sticks 12 Pack

Wolfgang Finger Pockets - 3 Pack

[Eric@CherryOnTop]

Looks nice Mike! You see my recent thread in product reviews? I used the DP coating on my Kia's wheels and painted the brake calipers.

Sent from my Transformer using Tapatalk 4

[loudog2]

Nice work! I need some stands badly. Mike, what temperate max will that wheel coating withstand?

[lunchboxmunchy]

Nicely done Mike! Now, you have to move to the driver's side and do those rims. Lol.

[Calendyr]

That's what I was gonna ask. Could you show us how to paint the brake caliper safelly at some point?

Your wheels really look nice after all this work you did, great stuff!

[Pats300zx]

Great job Mike !!!!