Wheel cleaning

[JCsupereagle]

I cleaned my GTR yesterday after a 500mile motorway trip as it was black with road salt. My GTR has silver wheels and what ever I tried i cant get the centre rough parts of he wheels clean. Just wondering what other people use the clean their wheels.

Why Kawasaki painted the wheels silver I will never know, there is only one colour for wheels and that is black . I am going to get mine powder coated black in the spring, hopefully this will help hide some of the road grime

[Lonewolf]

I used to use auto glym wheel cleaner. It said it was for cars and not to be used on bikes but I often used it without any issues.


Now my wheels are black I don't really care! 

[Rusty]

JC ... spray with cold water ... then spray on MUC OFF .. leave for a few minutes then get in there with a cloth and a good rub ... or go and buy a set of car/bike cleaning brushes from Halfords and do the same .. I commute most days throughout the year so I know what you mean about the mess .. but keep on top of it and your wheels will be fine ! 

[Lonewolf]

I can buy a 5ltr tub of Mucoff locally for £9.95 reduced from £19.95 and yes its pretty good stuff. However I recently bought a 25ltr drum of traffic film remover from a transport company for £18 and its as good as if not better than Mucoff. The TFR comes in three different strengths and I think I went for the weakest one. The strongest one is for wagons and agricultural machinery, the one I went for is mild enough not to damage any of the metals on the bike or the paintwork but still ample strong enough to remove the crap.

Have a word with a local haualge company and see if they can help you out.

[2kwacks]

I use wurths brake cleaner, just spray some on a cloth and wipe the wheel over, this removes the then rinse off with warm soapy water, but use a quality car shampoo wipe dry then polish with a good quality wax and your wheels will look like new all the time with very little effort

[tommytool]

Really stupid question. Our wheels are defo alloy aren't they?  Look carefully at the R1 and both rims were stripped and polished. They were like mirrors but took all winter to do. I've noticed that a great deal of crud get trapped in one specific corner of the wheel rim. Why?

[JCsupereagle]

 Cheers for the the replies, think I need to get some brushes and some wheel cleaner. Just wish the wheel casting was smooth in the centre of the wheels as it would make cleaning so much easier.

[nogoslow]

Try buying some wheel cleaner from www.haloproducts.co.uk

It's the own brand chemicals developed for the Halo smart treatment as carried out by www.allyearbiker.co.uk

It is exactly the same stuff that i use as an all year biker operator. i realise that might make me seem biased but i'm sure there are plenty of folks who have had their bikes treated that can vouch for how good the products are at cleaning your bike in preperation for ACF50 corrosion protection application.

I'm not trying to sell you a treatment (have you considered getting your bike done  ) Just pointing you toward a product that works wonders and that has been designed and tested specifically for bikes.

[JCsupereagle]

I will give it a try. I have already had my bike treated by all year biker about 6 weeks ago.

[nogoslow]

For useful hints and tips on how to keep your bike clean have a look here.

http://www.allyearbiker.co.uk/How_to_-_Clean_your_bike.html

[Lonewolf]

Some decent bits of advice there.  I must admit I thought you should polish it all the time too, thankfully I never do, I thought I was just being lazy!

[Rusty]

Was cleaning my wheels just yesterday at work ... in my downtime of course .... and they have come up very well as usual .. Muc Off and Muc Off brushes got the job done ..... now let's take a look at that Blow Dryer !!

[Boomer]

On thing I can add is don't ever be tempted to use WonderWheel on your GTR wheels.
This has completely  -ed my wheels.
I will need to get them powdercoated to bring them up to any semblance of looking good.
Luckily I don't really give a  what it looks like so long as it works well. 

[Rusty]

Never used it ... did it strip them down ? 

[Boomer]

It has removed some of the paint here and there but worst is the pitting which is impossible to clean the dirt out of.
As a consequence my wheels are black in places but mostly dirty grey.
My GTR1000 wheels on the other hand have survived years of abuse and WonderWheel use.
They look like they have had 160,000 miles of use (they have) but the 1400 wheels look worse after only 50,000 miles.