Poor man's wheel & axle prep question...

[Jimmy & his 2 Kids]

Hey guru's... its that time of year again... The Awana Grand Prix returns to our church again. As I am on a TIGHT BUDGET, buying John's axle & wheel products is just not in the cards. Plus I am helping with the cars that are just not rolling at check in by either cleaning up their stuff and reinstalling or actually having extra wheels & axles on hand that are already set to go. So I need to do this on the cheap. This is a really low tech competition. I used the most common speed methods and prep learned here and my kids cars killed it last year. But that also meant there were some kids that did not get any help or just had parents that didn't know whats up build their cars.

My questions is this... what are the typical household products that can be used to good enough affect like Pledge on the axles?
If I want to prep, polish and burnish the wheels, is there a favorite paste type compound that would suffice?

Once I get some product ideas I'll search the forum for how folks used them.

Thanks for looking!!!

Regards,
Jimmy

 

[CTDerbyDad]

Raid your garage and see what metal polishes you have. We use Mothers metal polish and then Brasso.

We use Plastix on the wheels.

 

[Jimmy & his 2 Kids]

Thanks for the tip DD! I will look that stuff up. Used to have aluminum polish for making my forks on the bike look chrome but that stuff is long gone. I’ll hit Oriellies to see what they have. I know they have Mothers products.

 

[Jimmy & his 2 Kids]

Noticing tho that John’s Red Rocket wheel bore polish is only $10.00. Anyone have a good idea how many applications you get out of that bottle?
Thinking abouth that one for us only and generic stuff for pit nights at the church. The church will probably spring for the supplies since it will be for all the kids cars.

 

[SuperSlow]

Red Rocket comes in a little jar. Should have about a half ounce of contents maybe a bit more. I couldnt guess how many applications that would be but i would imagine it to be more than you would use. Maybe John could help out with an educated guess for that.

 

[B_Regal Racing]

You could easily do 15 cars or more. You don't use much wax in a wheel bore...

 

[KC Architect]

We are pretty low-tech on wheel and axle polishing. Windex and Graphite will do it just fine.

 

[5KidsRacing]

The write up on my site is a budget method for axles prep & wheel prep.... It is located on the tab up top of this page. Kick it up a notch by waxing bores with Liquid Glass from auto store ($10) or Red Rocket.... Burnish yes.... I tell how to do that in there as well... I have never tried pledge, but i hear it works. Good luck!

 

[Jimmy & his 2 Kids]

Thanks so much KC & 5Kids! I have sanded & polished wheels but using a drill. I will have the drill press this time thank God. 5Kids I will check your site out again. I have already read through most of it and watched most of the vids last year when I first discovered this addiction. Alas, my memory doesn't go much past a few days anymore so I'll watch them again.
KC i'll be watching your vid here too. Just have to do some to-do's first but will watch that vid before crashing out.
Thanks again guys!
Regards!