CJ: how to clean up a set of old wheels?

[daniel_buck]

So I have a set of old CJ5 wheels for my Willys, and instead of painting them, I think I'd like to leave them "all natural" looking, at least for now (I could always sand and spray them later).

They all have a bit of surface rust here and there, but what I'm concerned about is the area where the bead sits. What should I do to clean this up? Should I sand it down to metal and spray some primer? or just sand it down to metal and leave it? Maybe I don't need to do anything, just clean it off with a rough sponge and water?

The wheels are steel, by the way. I'll take a photo of one of them so you can see what condition they are in.

[Jason]

SOS pads. I have resurrected many old rims that way. I found the pads did wonders for some of the build up. Then you can do what you will after the rust is gone.

[daniel_buck]

Thanks, I'll give them a try! Just soak the pad in water?

[JK08]

As weird as it sounds aluminum foil and water works great on old steel. However I have only done this on old bicycle wheel spokes so try it on the backside of your wheel first to see if it scratches it.

But I bet the SOS pads and some kind of polishing compound would work pretty well.

[Jason]

Wet the pad and occasionally dip it some water and it should work well. I have found that they don't seem to make SOS pads as durable as they once did so you will find you will go through a few or more per wheel.

[daniel_buck]

Ok, so I finally got around to cleaning these wheels up (since the tires are on back order, there was no rush)

the last wheel has more than surface rust, it's got full on rust and corrosion, SOS pad did almost nothing for this wheel (the other wheels turned out just fine, but they only had surface rust)

I'm concerned about the valve stem hole, and the tire bead surface. The outside bead is the worst, the inside bead I was able to get pretty smooth, not sure if it's good enough or not.

I just mounted the wheel to the jeep, spun it and hit it with a flap disc on an angle grinder.

[daniel_buck]

oh, well from asking around on the CJ forums, apparently these wheels should be used with tubes, so I guess I don't need them to have a seated bead, the tubes will hold the pressure. I've never had tubes in my tires before, this should be interesting. haha!

[aw12345]

That hole for the tire valve is pretty well toast. Maybe try to weld it up a little so it doesn't cut the tire valve on the tube.
Also airing down with inner tubes isn't a terribly good idea

[daniel_buck]

hm... well it'll mostly be a street jeep, but I do hope to take it on trails sometime, and air down. Wonder if I should try and find some old wheels that would work tubeless?

[Dukes69]

Besides the valve stem hole, I would say those wheels are unsafe. That is some pretty heavy rust pitting.

[daniel_buck]

Also airing down with inner tubes isn't a terribly good idea

Could you elaborate on this? I have been asking around, and I've heard several folks say that airing down with tubes is not a problem,

[aw12345]

If the tire slips on the rim a bit it will tear the tire valve off or at best it pulls it inside the rim. Then there is no change of airing up again. Especially since these rims where made for bias belted tires, there are no humps to hold the tire bead in place.

[daniel_buck]

that makes sense!