acetone on the wheels?

bmullins · June 4, 2003

I have a 2002 Sierra 1500 with shiny alloy wheels. 6-lugs covered by a plate. The plate has "GMC" in red paint in the middle of it. What I'd like to do is remove the red coloring and make the wheels all chrome-looking. I have heard of people using acetone to remove paint/decals. I just don't know if it will work for this application. Any ideas?? Thanks!

SportyShorty · June 5, 2003

I would think that it would work. A friend of mine took the grey paint off his Ford grille with it. Worked pretty good. If you try it, do a little spot first. Dont rub it all over to find that it wont work.

MI Z71 · June 5, 2003

Be careful with it around plastic. It's pretty aggressive and will attack styrene, ABS and other kinds of plastics.

bigtruck21 · June 5, 2003

use a q-tip first. It really depends if the red paint is covered by anything else like clearcoat or something.

MarkD · June 5, 2003

Just stating the obvious here. The center plate is PLASTIC. Be carefull.

bmullins · June 5, 2003

No, the center plate is not plastic. Those are the basic chrome-metal wheels with the plastic center. I have the aluminum wheels (not the flat one w/ 5 spokes, it's curved shiny with 6 spokes). The cover it has is metal. I doubt it has clearcoat on it. But I will definitely do a small section first and see what happens. Thanks for the input!

bmullins · June 5, 2003

Just stating the obvious here. The center plate is PLASTIC. Be carefull.

I take it back! You are right man. The center part is a plastic that looks too closely like aluminum. Now I'm afraid to do it. I don't want it to eat through the plastic.

On a side note: plastic on my wheels? Cheap bastards. Maybe it's time to go aftermarket.