OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Four Stroke Lawn Mower Frames Cleaning up old mower wheels/tyres?

I have two old mower wheels for a restoration but they are filthy. Years of ground in mud, grime and grease. Also the hubs have become very brittle. So I am wondering if anyone on this forum may have experience with cleaning up such parts? Should I just give them a long soak in detergent, or is there a better way to go about cleaning them? The wheels are hard to get so I do not want to ruin them. Generally I would just apply elbow grease but I don't want to damage the hubs any further. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hot tap water (not boiling) and dish washing detergent solution soaked for at least 10 minutes.
Then scrub with a plastic fibrous scourer ( the one you see on one side of most household sponges).
That's how I did a pair of old 1970s Victa wheels and it for a great deal of the dried up grime off ( but not all admittedly). It didn't harm the wheels at least.

Just a tip here - if you want to minimise scratching of the plastic, be sure to use a blue coloured scourer pad.

The reason for this is, that all of the green coloured scourers contain sand, and they will even scratch Pyrex [borosilicate] glass! And car windscreens too - a bloke I know found that out the expensive way...

+1 on using a mild detergent, too. Dishwashing liquid, or even cheap shampoo, are about the mildest.

Thank you both for the advice and tips. Gadge, I don't think I've ever seen a blue-coloured scouring pad in my life. Will have to pay more attention next time I'm in the supermarket.
How about using regular car wash as a detergent?

The 'blue' scourers are only available as scourer/sponge combos AFAIK.

Just checked under the kitchen sink, and it seems that Scotch-Brite have changed their no-scratch scourer/sponges to a green coloured scourer - the attached sponge is still blue, however. The viscose sponge side of these is really good for grease removal, BTW. Aldi have some no-scratch scourer sponges that are white scourer/yellow sponge.

Regular car wash is OK, but steer clear of the likes of CT-18 Truck Wash.

I actually use cheapo shampoo to wash my motorcycles, on the recommendation of my bike mechanic. Car washes can be a bit corrosive to aluminium alloys, especially that CT-18. Shampoo is neutral pH, it still gets the paintwork clean, and it rinses off easily.

Don't they say to use carwashes because other detergent products have salt in them?

Having said that, I have used that common pink hand wash in servo toilets on my car and the results were excellent.
Even better if there is a rainstorm to rinse it off.

Mowerfreak, I can see you now, parked outside the servo toilets, running in and out with a handful of pink hand wash to plonk in a bucket.

haven't done it since I discovered 2litre bottles of wash n wax, but I might just put it to the test again for old times sake.

Dunno - but then I do tend to disregard sales reptiles' blurbs.

I do have a chemistry/chemical engineering professional background, so I'm well aware of the tech salesman's mantra; "If you can't blind 'em with science, baffle 'em with bullshit!".