Fixing Defective Clear Coat? (Pictures)

I posted this a while back in the stock 91-94 explorers page, but i figured i would ask here. I have noticed on some rangers and explorers with the stock manual locking hubs and wheels, that the clear coat corrodes/rots and looks unsightly.

I want to strip them down and run em bare polished aluminum. I used aircraft stripper to remove the clearcoat and it worked fabulously. Just let it soak and scrub with steel wool.

now that the clearcoat is gone, im still stuck with some corrosion that i cannot remove. It looks bad

Any ideas? would rustoleum chrome hold up on wheels? if i clearcoat over it?

if i cannot get em smooth and shiny i think im gonna paint em flat black as a last resort cuz the heep rims on my tires now are backspaced a LOT and i hate it...

 

[wood1]

I stripped and polished the phone dial wheels on my stang a few years ago, I used a feather edger with increasingly finer sand paper (keeping things wet with a sprayer), then went to a couple different polishes with a wool pad on a buffer.

The problem is that once you start you really can't stop until the entire face of the wheel is done because of the machine marks.

No doubt those rivets will pose a problem, my wheels were pretty flat. I also sprayed the holes in the wheels with silver paint, I'd show you a pic but my wife took the camera with her today.

I'm thinking that you might want to break out the spray paint... I love wheels painted black, they look cool.

 

[Dre]

something either to remove the old finish - like soda blasting or something. It should not be that expensive and you can probably find someone in your area that does that. Then either put some clearcoat on it or some spray can black.

Or look-up service that restores rims to original beauty - that can also be done. Don't know how much but I know it's been done.

 

[ParkerRocker]

well i gave up on restoring em. I have been at it for weeks now and just decided to paint em black. I used the same semigloss that i used for my bumpers. i think i will give em a coat and then wetsand it/rubbing compound before the next one. I'm thinking a few coats and then finish with some clearcoat.
here they are after the first coat, i forgot to remove some gunk left from the aircraft stripper on some so i need 2 scrape it out and repaint some areas.

I will post a final set of images once I'm finished and once the tires are mounted.