I'm attaching a couple of pictures of a wheel that I recently purchased and I'm in the process of cleaning up and polishing. The wheel has a lot of areas that I can best describe as 'mottled' and the chrome has a goldish tint to it. The green arrows point to good examples, the red arrows point to 'neutralized' ruse from the application of Navel Jelly. Any ideas what this is a result of and possible fix??? I'm using Mothers chrome polish with 0000 steel wool. I think clicking on the pictures should make them bigger. Wheels are so frickin' hard to photograph!!!
I don't think you can fix it, it looks like "weak" chrome. The chrome layer even when new is pretty thin, each time you clean them takes a little chrome off.
Anything really shiny is hard to photograph. I learned that from a professional photographer. Chrome plating is nearly clear, as it is only a few microns thick. It would appear that these need stripping and re-plating. I've had fair success with WD-40 and steel wool in the past... but that was "California rust". It won't make them perfect, but will usually make them nice.
You can't polish chrome once it's gone...and you aren't really "polishing" chrome when you use chrome polish or steel wool or whatever your potion is. All you're doing is cleaning it. As already stated, your wheels need to be rechromed.
Thanks guys - that's pretty much what I had concluded but don't claim to know everything so I thought some 'counseling' from this knowledge base might come up with something!!!
