OK so it's weekend and being retired I usually stay around the house so I won't interfere with the worker bee's who do all of their stuff on the weekend. So the lawn was cut and nothing to do around the house so I pulled the wheels on the XKR. Whoever guessed the weight was right on because the rears weighed 65LBS each. I washed and the wheels using simple green and hosed them down. I did 1 at a time and while one was drying I cleaned the calipers . Then I waxed the wheel and the caliper. I know they will get dirty again but being that I only have 8K miles on them I wanted to clean them before the corrosive brake dust starts doing it's damage on the paint. It took me 3 hours to do all 4 wheels and I must say when I was finished they looked great. Oh I cleaned my nuts too.

 

When I wash my XKR I polish the exhaust tips. You're not alone.

Mike

 

Hahahaha glad you said it as I was afraid to , lol

 

Clean nuts is a must

 

Nice wheels!

My wheels have a little rash, probably from potholes and previous damage that was painted over improperly by the dealer I bought it from. Unfortunately, I am having a hell of a time finding a shop that will rebuild these wheels. By rebuild I mean repair them to like-new condition, including taking the tire off. (How come all of these shops want to repair the wheels ON the car?!)

Sorry for my rant!

 

NICE JOB! Now you made me feel guilty for not doing so myself :-).

 

Did you dilute the simple green with water? It is extremely strong stuff. I purchased my car with 4,800 miles with the OEM brake pads. After changing to ceramics I've been cleaning the rims with meguiars car wash. I purchased some cleaning tools from autogeek to get in between the spokes as well as cleaning the lug nuts. The first cleaning showed a ton of black dirty water coming off. I now get very little dirt coming off and best of all I have actually gotten the interior barrel of the rims almost spotless. It's the old brake dust building up with the heat that can become rock hard and almost impossible to remove. Luckily, I don't have any. I've learned to try to stay away from any cleaning products for the wheels due to any harshness that might hurt the clearcoat over time.(regardless of what the label of the cleaner discloses)

 

Pick up a copy of Hemmings auto magazine and you can find plenty of wheel repair or refinish services. You would send them the wheel and if it needs straighten (repair) or just strip and respray some of these places do excellent work.

 

I'm guessing you have never tried Sonax Full Effect wheel cleaner.
Just sayin..... cause its your loss.....

Peace,
Vince

 

well done, perfect work. doesn't matter what you do, but the way you do it.

 

Mine might be old ,but it all gets polish including the tail pipes.....I cleaned the power steering pump today!

 

I wash the muffler, exhaust tips, and inside the exhaust outlets every time I wash the car. I don't have an easy way to remove the wheels, bu I know I get all the brake dust off. The calipers on the XK are hard to keep clean. The surface embeds dirt quite easily.

 

Me too.

 

I keep a bottle of 50/50 mix and use it for just about everything . Works good for me and does not attack either the clear coat or paint.

 

The wheels, wheel hubs, and brake calipers look great. I know it takes a lot of time to complete this task. Great job. Very few car owners will spend the time and make the effort to do this.

The inside of the wheel barrels look like new.

 

Thanks , I was surprised that it cleaned up so good. Interesting I found 2 of the wheels were re-balanced as the wheel weight glue was still on. I had to use goo-gone to remove that and also some of the typical blacktop pits but all came clean. All of the pads and rotors looked good and I got to see how the e-brake is hooked up on the rear wheels. Looks like the stock Dunlops in the rear will need to be replaced before 15K miles. We'll see how long the wax and wear last.

 

Quick tip............I use a toilet bowl cleaner brush to clean the inside of my exhaust tips! The brush fits perfectly! almost like it was made for us "OCD" people! RRRRRR

 

1. Wife kicked you out again and you had a lot of free time
2. It was raining and golf got washed out.
3. Your OCD meds ran out
4. You sttole it, drove it a while, and are returning it so no one knows the better.

That will make someone a fabulous used car someday! Just kidding!!

 

Now that I think about it, didn't jag toes have a thread about filling the gas tank past the automatic pump shutoff point in order to get just a few more miles between refuelings? I said it was OCD then and I'm starting to agree with myself! Haha!

 

+1 on the simple green - its the ONLY cleaner we used on the billion-dollar sportfishing boats here ... the stuff simply works.