Whitening Yellowed wheels
 

Hi guys,

Like many people I tend to re-use my wheels. I boil them off and it works a treat for me, except...

...When boiling off ProLine tires, the wheels (nylon) become yellow/beige like, it just looks horrid! :( I can't get it off with regular cleaning materials (soap, detergents, etc), it seems the tires and boiling have an effect like dye.

So I was wondering... Has anyone got suggestions to solve this issue? Or even better, proven methods? :)

My Durango ones did exactly the same, i believe its the superglue rather than the make of tyre that causes it. I just lived with it, like you i couldn't re-whiten or remove the yellow colour

I have not had this at all with Schumacher tires, using the same glue as on my ProLine tires. Inserts don't seem to matter much, and the (normally white) inserts from ProLine sometimes show a brown discolouration where they touched the tires when it was still in the packaging.

Regardless of the cause though, I'd prefer to get them a proper whitening treatment :lol:

use acetone job done ,it removes the tires and doesnt mess up the colour

To re-whiten try this. You can get it from a chemist
http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=98012
They'll think you want it for bad breath but hey.

Don't boil them

Use acetone come out clean.

Stephen

Bleach soloution then cif if you need to brighten

Acetone is easier than boiling tho

Thanks for the suggestions guys :)

One of the reasons I don't use acetone is because I live with 6 students in 1 house, and my room covers just under 20 square metres. I've got no proper place to keep the stuff without killing brain cells (probably mine whereever I put the stuff as the fumes will end up upstairs at my room) :lol: I found boiling to be nearly odor-free and worked for me so far.

@bodgit: Thanks for the link :) It looks very promising. I did find some info that Hydrogen Peroxide has the potential to damage/weaken Nylon even in low concentrations, but I don't know by how much... so I'm going to read myself into that a bit more as those pictures do show quite an amazing result! :thumbsup:

In the meantime I did some searching too... I found whiteners/brighteners for laundry/clothing, I'll have a good look at the contents of that :) I also found some sources mentioning the use of lemon juice+sunlight to re-whiten nylon. I haven't had the time to look into the bleach but it's worth looking into as well.

And in the end... I will just give one or two methods a shot :)

You dont pour the acetone into an open container though, so apart from the fumes you get from pouring it and retrieving wheels, there should be no fumes.

The hydrogen peroxide is just a mouthwash so it wont stink the place out and as its weak enough to use in your mouth then it should not damage the wheels. The stuff women put on hair might. Lemon juice can whiten nylon clothes, but that may be too acidic.
Try an old wheel first and see how it goes. At the end of the day you'll have wheels like Richard hammonds teeth.

just run yellow or black wheels,there faster anyway

Just Rit Dye them black or something crazy like orange :thumbsup:

I used to strip my tyres in acetone as quickly as I could, then drop them into scorching hot water with Daz in to soak, and then scrub them with a toothbrush when water cooled down enough to put my hands in - not my own toothbrush :lol:, then rinse all in cold water and run a file over the rim so no problem re-glueing.

Then I went to yellow wheels for a bit, and didn't bother :lol:

How do you use acetone to get the tyres off ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHjcdiViDtQ

All three methods (acetone, boiling, oven) explained in detail :)

Drop them into a 3/4 filled sealed container of acetone, leave to soak 24hrs. It turns the glue into jelly if not completely disolves it, then you just take the rubber off easily. The acetone turns yellow - orange - brown depending on ages, and that is what stains the wheels.

Thats the easiest way. You can let the container closed so you havo no odor at all.

You will need a very strong sun light to make work peroxide. It is better to use pure bleach. Rims will be white in 24h.

Closed = sealed, same thing :)

I know I know, sorry for my english....:blush:

I bought some Hydrogen Peroxide today - it's just a bit shy of covering the whole wheel but it will do for the experiment.

It's cloudy and I doubt the UV-light is that intensive this time of year anyway. Plus, I found many sources to believe it will do a decent job. It's more about finding out if it does anything else to the nylon than whitening it. I'll be comparing the other (untreated) wheel of this pair each day for a whole week to see if anything happens to them in terms of strength or flexibility :)