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MG MGB Technical - Cleaning wire wheels

Hi, just bought my first classic, a 1968 MGBGT, hopefully the first of many! Anyway, I was cleaning her the other day and I was wondering if there are any special products I can buy to help get all the engrained gunk off the chrome wire wheels, i must have spent an hour doing just one with a small screwdriver (for the crud), toothbrush and cloth, although it does look spanky now I dont wanna waste a weekend doing it when i would rather be driving!!

Oh, and where the hell does the interior map light mount on to?!?!?!

cheers
OT Hayter

Ah, the joys of cleaning wire wheels. I spend from an hour to an hour and a half on each of my chromes, all done with the MkI digit and a variety of chamois leather and dusters to dry off, distribute polish, and polish off after using a hose brush and clean water to get the worst off the bits of the hub, rim and spokes that it will reach. There is very little by way of magic jollop that gets dirt off and leaves it sparkling just by spraying it on, road dirt and brake dust tends to get baked on particularly with the fronts. I did see an acid-based product that came with strict instructions not to leave it on any longer than 10 seconds then wash it off with copious amounts of water, but how that manages to get through varying thicknesses and consistences of dirt and crud at varying speeds to get to your paint/chrome where you can wash it off just before it starts eating into your paint/chrome I don't know. Particularly tough stains that resist removal by ordinary car polish can be dealt with by using Solvol Autosol, but only absolutely where necessary as it is an abrasive. Doing it regularly will make it easier.
Paul Hunt

Agreed, welcome to the world of wire wheels!
Try to find a local self-serve car wash with the high pressure wand. Give the wheels a pre-soak and hit-em hard with the wand. You will still have to do the up-close-and-in-person detailing but the most of the crud will be gone (screw-driver...shudder).

Mike!
mike!

Yes , and they look so pretty when you follow a car fitted with them , the spinners flashing molten in the sunshine! I get mine wet all over with a garden spray , then using an old flexible headed toothbrush I put some cheap washing up liquid on the head and work systematically round the wheel , I start on the hub at the outside and go all round , then the hub inside then the hub itself and the spokes , then the rim outside , inside outside inside. I start from the highest point and work down rinsing every so often to carry the dirt away, finishing at the outside lowest part of the rim , clean this and rinse , and the wheel is a thing of beauty again , until next time it rains . I have been wasting time like this for longer than I care to remember ,and can whizz through it now , just ignore any pitying glances from passers by .
I did borrow my sons motorcycle wheel cleaner , which I think is the one refered above *** off it's called . Not impressed .
S Best

I clean mine off the car, which seems faster despite the time to remove and reinstall them. Much easier to clean the spoke nipple areas that way. For brushes I use one of the Moss wire wheel cleaning Brushes and a soft kitchen sink brush along with Autoglym Wheel Cleaner. For really nasty gunk I use Simple Green and cotton rag.

Clean them often and they won't be so bad to maintain. I usually give them a simple spray and hose-off each time I wash the car, and every couple months I do the full clean which takes about 20-30 minutes per wheel. My climate is very dry here so your wheels may get dirty faster and require a full cleaning more often.
Steve Simmons

Remove the wheels from the car and clean them as best you can with advice from above. Clean all the grease from inside the hub to squeaky clean. Coat the wire wheel spoke heads on the inside of the hub with clear silicone sealer. The stuff you use around the bathtub works great. This will prevent any grease migrating from the hub into the spokes through the holes. This will keep the wire wheels cleaner and prevent any extended cleaning for a long time.

Andy
Andy Preston

I used to use a toilet brush and laundry detergent to keep my wires clean. Very quick and easy.
The type with Wooden handle, wire bit with very long green plastic bristles wound into the wire, projecting in all directions, I recall.
Peter

cheers guys, i guess its just a case of hard graft to get them looking good, and then just wash regularly to keep 'em like that. cheers.

oh yeah, I still need to know where the flexible light thing should be mounted to . . .
OT Hayter

I did mine for the first time yesterday and found the best way was to take them off the car and then blast them with a high pressure washer, occasionally stopping and getting into the difficult places with an old tooth-brush to loosen off the difficult stuff. That way you can do tehm from both sides - but be careful not to get any grit etc in the teeth of the spline hubs (I think that's what they are called!). I found I'd blasted so hard some small pieces of grit had got in there - so I wiped them all down and copper-pasted before re-fixing to the car.
Paul Dunt

The silicone smeared on the inside of the hub is a great way to keep grease from going up the spokes; its also excellent at trapping moisture in there. This is usually detectable by seeing the traces (hopefully just traces) of rust on the spokes where they're coming out of the hub. I've always heard that the UK is a somewhat moist climate, so you may want to avoid the silicone.

Flexible light thing- is yours a map light on a flexible stem? If so, its an aftermarket accessory so you can put it wherever you want and be "correct." The factory rally cars had them on the dash top panel.
Wade Keene

Once you have got the wheels clean - spray them with Autoglym wheel protector - it makes cleaning them next time a doddle and a quick blast of Autoglym wheel cleaner and then the hose will have them sparkling in no time.
Chris at Octarine Services

OT,
I also got my first classic recently - an MGB GT (68). How are you finding it? I'm in lover with it! It's great having my own little run around to go to the gym and take me wee lad out for a cruise. I was a bit worrried about owning an old classic at first, but I'm really into it. I've even been to a couple of rallies!
Great fun, hey. No way is my girlfriend allowed near it, though!!!!!

Richard.
Richard

This thread was discussed between 19/07/2004 and 26/07/2004

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