Bench grinder as detailing tool?

[dynodon]

I just got through switching my winter tires over for the summer tires on my "work" car. The summer wheels are nice chrome with exposed stainless steel lug nuts.

One area of a car that a lot of owners neglect is the wheel. At least the back side and the lug nuts, if exposed.

I started my project by cleaning the back side of the wheel with Wurth Super Spray All to get the built-up dust and oil and other crud. Almost any good general purpose cleaner will work for this. Keep lots of rags on hand as the brake dust will turn them black quickly. Wearing rubber gloves is highly recommended. See a future note about brake pad selection.

The back side of the wheel is often neglected, especially if an owner doesn't change over wheels from season to season. It is a lot of work to take wheels off and clean them, but well worth it, especially for alloy wheels where a lot of the back side of the rim shows through.

So where does the bench grinder come in? In my case, I keep a nice buffing wheel attached to one end of my grinder, and a selection of buffing compound sticks hand. A good place to get this is Eastwood Company. http://www.eastwoodco.com

In my case I buffed the stainless lug nuts. Over the years (110,000 miles in this case) even careful use can put a lot of marks into a set of lug nuts. (plastic encased sockets are now available, and a good idea) Lug nuts are hard to shine up by hand, but a grinder makes short work of it. Try to find a long bolt to help hold them. But if you are careful, you can do one flat and the end at a time without a tool to hold them. Always use eye protection around a grinder.

It doesn't take much compound (use the mildest for most purposes) to do the job.

You may be amazed at how nice your wheels look with shiny lug nuts. IF yours don't have a stainless cap, they probably will rust at some point, and a polishing on a bench grinder will take care of that too. Don't forget to give the surface that mates with the wheel a little buff to get built-up crud off and make torque figures more accurate.

I find that for a lot of little metal parts on a car, a buffing wheel works wonders. When putting together an engine compartment duriing a restoration, a buffing wheel can be faster for small quantities than sand blasting or media blasting. In many cases you can buff up a bolt and not even take off the original coating. A spray of semi-gloss clear before installation can keep original bolts and nuts looking good for years.