cleaning aluminum wheels

Aug 04, 2023 Last reply: 2 years ago 4 Replies

I have a 2002 Honda Goldwing GL1800 with 107K miles. I bought it at



75K miles five years ago. The motorcycle has aluminum wheels and to the best of my knowledge they are not coated. The wheels have tons of brake dust, corrosion, and pitting. I've been trying to clean them the best I can and the front wheel looks much better, but the back wheel is still pretty bad.

Meguire's Ultimate All Wheel Cleaner which is safe for aluminum has removed most of the brake dust to the point where the front wheel looks decent from a distance. The back wheel side that doesn't have the brake caliper looks much like the front wheel too, but the back wheel side with the brake caliper looks terrible and no amount of scrubbing with the wheel cleaner takes off any more dirt. The cleaner turns purple when sprayed on brake dust, but this stuff is either grime or really old brake dust with its properties changed over time because it doesn't turn purple anymore. I've used a toothbrush but not a brass brush yet. I've also tried using a metal polish cream.



Front Wheel

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Back Wheel
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What is your suggestion on how to clean these wheels?


Are you only scrubbing by hand? Would it be safe to chuck a polishing wheel into a drill and use a dab of polishing compound? I'm guessing you'd prefer to avoid taking the wheel to a shop and let them polish it.

Your might get a good answer here: uk.rec.motorcycles

Have you investigated using brake cleaner?

I ended up rubbing aluminum foil with lots of water to clean the aluminum wheels. Amazingly it worked rather well, except for the bad side of the rear wheel. For that one I used SOS steel wool pads which got 80% of the grime off. I topped it off with metal polish to smooth them out and protect them. If there was a protective coating (doubtful) there certainly isn't one anymore, but it wasn't working anyway so no big loss.

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