wyocutlass

I had some spare time today, and my wheels were getting oxidation pretty bad, so I decided to clean them up using coke and aluminum foil. What do you think? Not done yet, but its a start.

tru-blue 442

Wow, that looks great. Pour Coke and scrub with foil?

wyocutlass

Yes sir. Just pour a little over the area and put some elbow grease in it with the foil. I change the foil out and start with a new piece pretty often. Turn everything black and brown from taking everything off. Plan on taking the wheels completely off and doing the lug nuts. Next I will do the bumpers and trim pieces.

oldcutlass

Try some extra fine steel wool and soapy water also.

VI Cutty

How long does it hold up before it needs redoing? Wish I'd known about this when I was cleaning up my old chrome wheels before selling!

Professur

If you want to save your soda for your thirst ... the active ingredient in the Coke is phosphoric acid. You can buy it direct at full strength and you don't leave sugar all over the place to attract ants. Personally I prefer the blue scrubber pads myself. Plenty aggressive, but less risk of leaving scratches.

orange442

If the rust and scale buildup is really bad, I have industrial strength acid concentrate that says wire wheel cleaner on the container to dissolve the buildup and most of the rust off. Then just use Turtle Wax brand chrome polish and they will be as shiny as they can be. Many times, if they are not real bad, a good cleaning and the Turtle Wax chrome polish is all that is needed because the Polish will take a lot of rust as corrosion off chrome and give a nice shine. I sometimes will also use an aluminum polish to finish it out especially if I am polishing stainless trim.

Redog

I used the coke trick on my rear bumper back in 2011. rust has not returned

schmee

Wow. That wheel turned out great. Redog guessing the coke had not lasting neg effects on the bumper?

Yellowstatue

I think that one tire needs a plug!

hookem horns

Replacement lug nuts may help, since the rust will return quickly if the chrome is damaged. Cheapos available on Epay

olds$$6565

Any chance this works on a bumper before I try this

wyocutlass

I think so too! Lol.

Macadoo

That's an amazing transformation, wyo! I had read somewhere that the aluminum causes a chemical reaction with the chrome, essentially re-chroming it. Not sure if that's true. I'm sure one of our chemists will chime in.

bob p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_series

Giftman23

Ok, thanks, good info and now if we can translate Galvanic whatever and tell me what damn side of the tinfoil to use I'll try this on my similar condition cragars in the next few weeks!

bob p

I thought that was pretty self-explanatory. What's missing?

^^^That means that when you combine any two metals on the list in a conductive solution, the one that's lower in the list will preferentially rust and the other will be preserved. That's what is meant by saying that the lower metal on the list acts as a sacrificial anode.

The list is organized with "Noble" metals on the top and "Ignoble" metals on the bottom. "Noble" metals aren't prone to rust. "Ignobile" metals are prone to rust. If you connect any two different metals together in an electrolyte solution, you form a battery. The one that's lower on the list will be the one that rusts because it acts as the anode of the battery. Because that's the part that is intended to rust away to preserve the other part, it's called a "sacrificial" anode.

When you use coke and foil on iron, you're creating an open battery cell. The acid in the coke acts as your electrolyte solution, and because aluminum is below both iron and chromium in the galvanic series, the battery discharge reaction occurs spontaneously, with aluminum acting as the anode in the battery. The aluminum anode is sacrificed (oxidizes/rusts) and the rusty iron gets reduced to elemental iron, so the iron rust disappears. Because we are talking about a battery, you can make the reaction go backwards and reverse which material gets rusted by applying electricity of the right voltage and polarity (recharging).

There's nothing magic about Coke. it's just a weak solution of phosphoric acid. Most car guys know about phosphoric acid and rust. This situation isn't any different. Instead of the Coke, you might as well use tomato ketchup, lemon juice, or vinegar as the acid solutions. They'll all do the same thing.

Yellowstatue

^^^^After I read all this stuff and other interesting articles here, when do I get my diploma and from whom??

bob p

Chances are you have the diploma already ... I learned that in High School chemistry in the 1970s. Didn't every boy have a chemistry set back then, so he could learn how to blow things up?

Yellowstatue

I didn't take chemistry in high school but I did have a green fold-up chemistry kit and all that I could do with that was make a mess! I think I still have that set...God...now I'm going to have to blow something up

Macadoo

IIRC, I almost burned down the house with my brothers chemistry set. I might have been all of five years old.