How to polish corroded engine covers quickly and in situ?

[bwringer]

The clutch and stator covers on my GS850 look awful. Corroded, nasty, and disgusting. Bleagh.

I don't want to stop riding long enough to take the covers off and polish them, or send them out to be polished.

Anything I can do in the meantime over the course of a few evenings to make them look a little better without removing them? The clutch cover in particular looks really, really nasty.

I'm thinking a little paint stripper to remove any vestiges of clear coat, then some very fine sandpaper to get through the corrosion, followed by Scotch-Brite, either by hand or mounted to a drill. Would this be safe to do on the bike?

 

[Robert Corrie]

Strip the clear off.Use 400 grit sandpaper. Bring the shine back using Mothers or Flitz with an old t-shirt and rub until your fingers want to fall off.

 

[Anonymous]

I use paint stripper to take off the clear coat, then, depending on how bad the corrosion is, I start with coarse sandpaper: 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000. I use 3M wet/dry sandpaper when possible. WalMart has it in the automotive section. Each grit of sandpaper goes crossways to the one before it. Sand each one until you can no longer see the crossways marks created by the previous one.

After the sandpaper, I use a 4 inch buffing wheel with shank in a hand drill and a Jewler's Rouge buffing compound, which can be found at Lowe's. Spin up the drill and run the wheel on the buffing compound stick. Once the wheel has the color of the compound, run the wheel on the aluminum target surface. Should come out with a very, very shiny surface. My clutch cover is like a mirror.

Lastly, I reapply the clear coat with DupliColor high-temp clearcoat with ceramic. DON'T use a lacquer as it will go to hell if you ever have even the smallest gasoline spill. Follow the instructions on the spray can. Some people opt to not put clearcoat on again, but I find that if my bike sits with water on it for very long, i.e. in a snowbank, I get nasty aluminum corrosion where I don't have the clearcoat. Aluminum oxide is extremely hard, it's what the sandpaper is made of. So it's a pain in the butt to fix. I'd rather not let it happen in the first place.

More reading here: http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/5896/SatinLook.htm

 

[bwringer]

That satin look is awesome! Thanks!

I'll attack that cover with the sandpaper tonight. Believe me, it can't get any worse, so I'm not too worried about messing it up.

I have an 8" bench grinder, but I'll probably wait until winter to install polishing wheels and really shine up those case covers.

 

[bybowtie]

Eagle One NEVERDULL works like a charm

 

[jonr]

BW,

I just polished my points cover with Fabulustre polish. It took of the clear coat and subsequently polished the cover to a mirror finish. I converted one side of my bench grinder into a polishing lathe for less than $10 (tapered spindle and cotton buffs). The polish was an additional $6 for a 1lb tube. All I had to do take one grinding wheel off and I made a 4" riser to raise the grinder off the counter top a bit. Wet sanding the clear coat off with 600 grit would expedite the polishing process though.

-Jon

 

[KEITH KRAUSE]

I learned to polish by visiting www.eastwood.com
To do a proper job, you have to take the parts off for the initial polishing. You can do a fairly good job of keeping the shine with the parts still on though. I've maintained the shine with a drill and their products.
Clearcoating will cloud the finish from my experience. I apply a coat of wax to help stop oxidation. Polishing is a lot of work but I figure I would just be on the couch eating snacks. So in a way, polishing is also good for you. :lol:
You can see my results ('79 GS1000E) by visiting my website if you like.
Just click the WWW symbol below.

 

[Dark Jedi]

I will add:

I had better results from 3M pads than sandpaper. they have various grits in the hardware stores. You can rinse out the residue and keep on going when they get clogged.

And they wet sand excellently!

 

[Poot]

would it be possible to get a really shiny finish on the stator cover without using a benchgrinder?

I simply cant afford to buy any machines....

 

[Anonymous]

Pick up some 600 grit wet sanding pads/blocks (varies in price a little but cheap.. Do NOT get any course grit, don't want to score the finish)

Pick up a dremal or a clone ($15 to $50 anywhere)

Note: Get a wired one.. you may think "hmm.. cordless would be easier to use outside." but it doesn't have the torque. Think Moped vs. GS1100

Pick up some buffing/polishing wheels for the dremal ($2.50+ for a pack of 6 at walmart)

Pick up a small container of Mothers Brand Aluminum polish ($3.00+ at VIP)

------------------

Put the sanding pad in a bowl of water, sand the part to get a smooth finish free of burrs, dirt, clearcoat, etc.. as the pad/block gets full of debri just rinse it off in the water bowl. Once done with this step, put a little mothers on the wheel, put dremal on low to medium speed.. start in one spot and as the mothers turns black, slowly move to the left in a straight path. Do this until the wheel is garbage and start over. It will take probably 3 packs of wheels to do a decent job of one cover, but the finish will be mirror fine.

-------------------

Note: Again, do not use sanding blocks/pads courser then 600. Don't want to score or scratch the finish. On the same subject.. beware when using a dremal, or clone, that the 'chuck' doesn't hit your project or it may scratch/score as well.

Good luck, let us see some before and after shots!

Rick 8)

 

[Poot]

haha! you know what.


I took out some of the Autosol I had last night, and went at it with a terry cloth until my fingers were sore, and i got the top portion nice an' shiny!!

take that for no money!

 

[snowbeard]

I got carried away with the steel wool one day and shined right thru the clear coat (which was anything but clear by then), once I kept going it really came out pretty nice! I'm sure it could be better, but good enough for me!

now as for cleaning out the cooling fins on the upper portion, I can't even get my wool in there, and I'm not about to shine that hard for those... any spray on, wipe off's out there??

 

[Dark Jedi]

For fins, a very thin flapper wheel on a drill works wonders.

Wet it down and pack some polishing compound in there, and flap away.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Jedi I need to polish the fins, whats a flapper wheel. No way can I polish each fin by hand! Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Jedi I need to polish the fins, whats a flapper wheel. No way can I polish each fin by hand! Thanks

that's a flapperwheel w/sandpaper 120 grit...

 

[Dark Jedi]

That works. A polishing wheel is identical but uses blank canvas instead of sandpaper. That allows you to use finer polishing compounds to finish it up to a mirror shine.

Then add a coat of good clear engine paint to keep it clean and shiny.

 

[bwringer]

Can you get those flap wheels in really thin widths that will fit in between the fins?

I'm thinking something like a canvas flap wheel would be great for cleaning out years-old engine grunge before hitting it with Alumiblast or just enjoying the general cleanliness and using S100 or something.

You'd probably need several, since they would get dirty pretty quickly used in this way.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks m0unds! I've never seen one of those. Second on bwringers question. Can you get one thin enough? I'm having a rough time polishing between the fins, even with a Dremel. :?

 

[Dark Jedi]

I have seen them as thin as 1/4". I have one that I use that is about 3/8" and goes between nicely.

 

[Anonymous]

I have seen them as thin as 1/4". I have one that I use that is about 3/8" and goes between nicely.

Thanks, i'll give it a try.