Is bead blasting a good way to clean steel wheels?

I want to repaint my 40 year old stock steel wheels.  They do have some surface rust and of course the inboard sides have a lot of rust.  Is bead blasting the best way to clean them in preparation for painting?  Should I bead blast the inboard side also?

Dan, grit blast or glass bead is what you want to do. Do the entire wheel front and back. I do not know what your plans are for them? Get all the rust out that you can. Eastwood makes a great rust encapsulator for any tough areas left. Depending on how much time you have they can be returned to like new condition. Give them a couple good heavy coats of primer and sand them back down, you can then skim putty them  where they have pits and sand some more...prime some more....sand some more and prime again. They will eventually look like new. Then spray them with wheel paint.  Make sure your tire mounting guy uses lots of juice when putting the tires back on, or all that hard work will be chipped up

ebo2010-09-07 17:56:54

You can glass bead steel wheels without a problem..do the whole wheel if you can..especially where the tire seats in the bead..maybe some light sand paper on the rust..maybe a 220 grit to a 400 grit wet sand paper.. a good cleaner and prime and paint..could even do a powder coat..it will look new when your done!
Rich

Most good powder coat shops offer ralley wheel argent silver.  After all the work of blasting and cleaning, powder coating sounds like a good way to preserve your work.

Larry

Just had the wheels blasted with Aluminum Oxide.  This is the media the stripper recommended.  They look great.  BTW, Eastwood also recommends Aluminum Oxide.

Dan, if your just starting getting product from Eastwood sign up for their club as it gives you free shipping and special deals each month. They e-mail you specials every day and some things...you just have to buy. I have recouped the club fee many times over already.

if your just starting getting product from Eastwood sign up for their club as it gives you free shipping and special deals each month.