I'm about to get down to work seriously on this bike. Gonna be starting with the Wheels, Fenders and Chainguard which are all covered in thick silver paint applied by a gorilla with a brush.

The fenders are aluminum, as is the chainguard (magnet doesn't stick) and I beleive the rims as well are otherwise I just had too weak of a magnet but i doubt thats the case.

Anyhow....whats the best way to go about cleaning up these wheels? I tried abrasives (scotch brite pad, Steel Wool, and sandpaper) with no results for a lot of sweat. I'm thinking the way to go is a gnarly chemical stripper (man that sounds like something that crawled out of a NJ swamp and went to work at Bada Bings!)

The question I really want to hear opinions on is whether I should attempt to disassemble the wheels prior to stripping them. I'm plenty comfortable with wheel building but I don't want to go disassembling the whole works unnecessarily. My concern is that If I leave the wheels built and try to clean the old paint off that I'll not get all of it off and be left with a wheel thats mostly nice clean aluminum with flecks of 50 year old paint stuck here and there.