Can these be polished

[GateKeeper]

OK, so I am doing my rebuild/restore, and I am looking at all the side covers, and well they look like crap, they are dull, pitted, weathered, and so on....

So by looking at my pics here, do you think that they can be polished back up, if I say sand them down, progressively going finer and finer, and then use a buffing wheel to buff to a shine, and then seal with some varathane or something like that...

Or sand them down smooth, and paint, black ?

What you all say ??????

This is just the one side, the other is just as bad........

Thanks for any and all tips

 

[Nessism]

Yes, they can be brought back. Lots of work is all.

 

[allojohn]

Go for it. Use paint stripper to remove what's left of the lacquer and begin with 400 grit or higher. If you start too coarse it'll take a ton of elbow grease to get the scoring out. Good luck mate!

 

[GateKeeper]

Time and elbow grease....sounds like fun

I will give it a try

Thanks

 

[obgrayone]

use wet dry sandpaper and lots of water with a drop of dish soap

 

[GateKeeper]

noted, Thanks

 

[1_v8_merc]

I use very fine-grit sand paper, which is used for paint repairs without removing too much clear coat.(it's a black sand paper at autozone.)

But I've have pretty good luck with that.
It doesn't take too long once you get the feel for it.

 

[Nessism]

I use very fine-grit sand paper, which is used for paint repairs without removing too much clear coat.(it's a black sand paper at autozone.)

But I've have pretty good luck with that.
It doesn't take too long once you get the feel for it.

First step to cleaning up the covers is to strip all the clear off using paint stripper.

As far as sandpaper goes, I start with 320 grit because anything finer takes forever to remove the corrosion pitting.

BTW, there are tons of different polishing threads all waiting for someone to find using the search feature.

 

[NoH2Oh]

I did all of my alloy with 400, 600 and 1000 grit and finished off with Mothers Mag polish. Came out quite well.

This stuff is excellent....

http://www.mothers.com/02_products/05100-05101.html

 

[Steve]

The valve covers will be a bit harder to polish, but should respond well to fine paper.

Here are before and after shots of my son's 850: (not quite as bad as yours, though)

With a little more time and effort at the buffing wheel, you can have results like this:

.

 

[Pendulum]

Wow, that carb bowl is amazing! I just went from kinda wanting to polish my stuff up, to really wanting to.

 

[Shin-Ken 1074]

Hi, as you can tell by the pics from members those cases are more than recoverable from their present state and here is what is possible with alloy hubs and rims, and yes it is the same hub and not some scam pic, cheers.

Before:

After:

After:

 

[Shin-Ken 1074]

Hi Gatekeeper, now that you have seen what the cases can turn out like, if you have an alloy swing-arm why not give it a polish as well?

 

[GateKeeper]

WOW.....some really nice polishing there guys.....

I am not new to polishing, I just maybe the parts I had were to far gone, to get them back to a nice sheen, worst case scenario I can buff out as much as I can and then do a satin finish on them instead, I really did not want to paint them.

And yes I have the aluminum swingarm as well, and some other bits that are aluminim, will look at giving them a polish as well

I have done some polishing in the past on other items, but they were not in the state the covers are..

So I guess, it should be about the same, just a bit more work in the begining....

You have all given me the inspiration to try and get it done....

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Sisal(sp)wheels and a good bench grinder, or a big motor.
I pulled this motor off of a table saw my neighbor gave me before he moved.
It's unstopable, literally you can not stop it without turning it off.
I bought the sisal wheels from an ebay seller for cheap.(not pictured)
These parts were way worse than yours, pits and all.

 

[SVSooke]

If you polished those you can do these.As stated remove the clear then sand with wet n' dry.Off to the buffing wheels after that.My 1000 covers are nearly as bad,not worried in the least about making them shine.

 

[GateKeeper]

Beautiful.....

I will get at them.....soon, and post results, when I can

Worse part is, I will need new gaskets.........ohhh well

I just thought the pitting would make it a pain in the a$$, and it would end up looking polished but with pitting

I am not painting the engine, it's black and will stay that way, will try to spruce it up a bit, if I can

Thanks for the vote of confidence

 

[Guest]

Less or no sanding if ya use a sisal wheel. Some advise though, try to do it outside as its very messy/dusty. Wear gloves as the metal gets very hot, and dont forget the safety glasses and a resprator. Check your local Northern for polishing material. I could only find the sisal wheels on the net(Ebay), cheap(er).
It's fun watching the metal transform.

 

[GS ace]

First, remove the plastic coating with Permatex aerosol gasket remover or stripper. You can waste a bunch of time attempting to use an abrasive to accomplish this. If you have a power washer, removing the stuff is easy after it eats the coating. I only use paper to remove dings and scratches.

The rest is mostly time and elbow grease. A .75 hp buffer is the minimum recommended size if you're serious. Spend the extra money and get a something like a Baldor. Harbor Freight types can bog down, overheat, and will not last as long.

Caswell is a prime source for metal polishing/buffing equipment and supplies. It's the primary source for my shop.

 

[jaywelchy]

Mine are just as bad ... horrible looking.

But I have experience bringing the shine back in aluminum, and these guys are right ... time and elbow grease. It wont happen in 5 minutes, just keep at it.

When you get the feel of it, and realize how sweet the part looks when your done ... you will be amazed and addicted!

Good Luck

Jason