Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Scott Schroeder May 26 2010, 03:03 PM

Hi All -
I have a ton of aluminum to clean on a car. Some of the panels have oil/dirt residue, some have a bit of gas spatter and some - like the wheel wells - just have a bit of road grime. Lots of rivets that are holding grime as well. I dont want to polish anything, just get it clean. I had a bad experience with some wheels a few years back where a FLAPS recommended cleaner turned them white - it was a terrible mess. Makes me a bit nervous. Anyone have any experience/recommendations of a good product?

Thanks!
Scott S

Posted by: ArtechnikA May 26 2010, 06:25 PM

I've had pretty good results with Simple Green on aluminum.
Start dilute, test in an inconspicuous area...

There is a super-duper Simple Green wheel cleaner I actually do use on our (painted) aluminum without issue. I'd test it before trusting it to bare alloy. Plain ol' Simple Green is pretty benign IME tho...

Posted by: underthetire May 26 2010, 06:29 PM

On everything but clear plastic. Makes a mess of that. I would try lemon dish soap with warm water. We use that to clean aluminum parts at work.