Help. Cleaning racing brake pad dust of polished wheels?

[bryant]

I have screwed up.
i have been autocrossing and using some racing brake pads in the front. The brake dust is crazy from these pads (hawk black pads). Ive have started using a spary bottle to cool the tires between runs. well the water and brake dust seems to make an incredible hard substance the bonds to the wheel! Then im sure i made it worse by not trying to clean the wheels for a few weeks. you know that whole life gets busy excuse. so I have been trining all kinds of things to try to get this stuff off with out damaging the wheels to the point where they cant polish back out.
so i have tried eagle one aluminum wheel cleaner. It worked well on the loose dust stuff. no big task their. it seems to work with a ton of scrubbing with a wheel cleaning brush but its going to take a huge amount of time to get it all off.
i have tried brake cleaner. that didnt do a thing
i tried never dull polish. it didnt really do any better than the eagle 1.
i tried goo gone. didnt seem to do a thing.
ive tried a mother buff ball with their metal polish, and it just seemed to polish the black stuff.
i suspect ill need to get a real polishing wheel and real polishing compound and try that.
does any body have any suggestions that i havent tried that may brake down this substance with out damaging the aluminum?
after i get this clean, is there any wax for polished wheels that will help making it easier to clean?

[Raw Untamed]

First I was going to say Bug and Tar remover from Turtle Wax because that stuff loosens even the toughest tar when you let it soak for a couple of minutes, but you might want to go to an even stronger chemical such as mineral spirits. If you're in socal, you won't be able to find 100% mineral spirits, but the eco friendly version might work just as well.

As for a wax making it more easy to clean; absolutely yes. You can use a normal liquid, or paste wax on polished aluminum, or if you want an even easier application, spray wax will get the job done. I use spray wax on my polished aluminum wheels and it keeps them cleaner much longer. The spray wax doesn't have as thick of a coating as liquid wax, so you might want spray wax them more often. I like to wax mine instead of use other coatings that yellow over time.

Let us know what happens.

[Apogee]

I think 'ol fashioned elbow grease is the solution...hopefully the pitting isn't too bad. The Hawk Black compound pads, as well as their Blue 9012 and HT series create some fairly corrosive dust, and it will basically weld itself to polished aluminum. If it were my car and I was set on running those pads, I'd (re)polish the wheels and then powdercoat them so that I never had to do it again. FWIW, the DTC-30 pads have a broader temperature range than the Black compound and are a bit more wheel friendly IMO.

http://www.hawkperformance.com/compound-graph

Tobin
KORE3

[72BBSwinger]

Franks special cleaner from PRO products. Spray on rinse off, stuff is awesome.

[parsonsj]

Yep, you've got a lot of work ahead of you to clean those wheels. I clean my silver powder-coated racing wheels (I run Hawk DTC-60s and 70s pads) with a pressure washer and rubbing compound, and it takes me hours. And I do it the next day.

[FASTURN]

I have the same problem, autocrossed in the rain the other day, got home a few hours later and the dust was welded to my wheels. Have not got all off yet. Now I know why most of performance/ race use type rims are powdercoated...... But my WELD RT-S wheels sure looked nice when they were polished...just a few months ago! I even made sure my wheels were waxed, used a "TEFLON" spray wax, didn't help.

[RaceDuster72]

So the thing with polished wheels, is if you use too agressive of a cleaner it will oxidize the surface, then you have a lot more work polishing the wheel back to its origional luster. In my detail shop we use Meguires all purpose cleaner diluted 4:1 it works well and dose not f up the finish of the wheel.

[HarleyR]

After you clean them you can try spraying Pam on the wheels... It won't be a true fix all but it will help... We use it on our wheels to help with dust during a pitstop.... PMU pads make gnarly dust

[csouth]

I'm not sure how much stronger the corrosive materials are in race brake pads vs street, but i used this on all my wheels in the past. This is an after cleaning protector.

http://www.topoftheline.com/wheel-shield-protectant.html

[cluxford]

Carpro Iron X. Nothing else comes close. There is a lot of science behind this product. You'll evener look back